P. L. 123

QFO 9—1455

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MERRIE ENGLAND

BY

ROBERT BLATCHFORD

n

(NUNQUAM)

EDITED BY ALEXANDER HARVEY

‘Words ought not to be accepted because uttered by the lofty, nor rejected becaus®
’♦tered by the lowly.” — Confucius.

NEW YORK

THE HUMBOLDT PUBLISHING CO.

64 Fifth Avenue

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TRANSFER

D, C. PUBL 'f B1LAET
SEPT. 10,1^40

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CHAPTER. PAGE

I. — The Problem of Life . 5

II. — The Practical School . 10

III. — Town v. Country . 19

IY. — The Life of the Worker . 29

Y. — The Bitter Cost of a Bad System . 39

YI. — Who Makes the Wealth and Who Gets It ? . 50

YII. — Kent and Interest . . . 63

VIII. — The Self-made Man . 71

IX. — Industrial Competition . 80

X. — Waste . 90

XI. — Cheapness . 97

XII. — Socialism ! . iu5

XIII. — What are We to Do ? . 113

XIY. — The Incentive of Gain . 120

XY. — A House Divided Against Itself . 135

XYI. — The Survival of the Fittest . 145

XVII. — Socialism and Progress . 152

XVIII. — Socialism and Slavery . 163

XIX. — Industry . 172

XX. — Environment . 180

XXI. — The Rights of the Individual . 190

XXII. — Luxury . 199

XXIII.— Minor Questions . 215

XXI Y.— Paid Agitators . 224

XXY. — Labor Representation . 232

XX YI.— Is it Nothing to You ? . 237

PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION.

This little book was sold throughout Great Britain to
the extent of over 000,000 copies. That fact says more
for it than any review could. Very few changes have
been made in adapting the work to the needs of its
American readers, and those changes have been clerical.
English pounds and shillings are turned into American
dollars and cents. Occasionally a sentence has been
omitted. Chapter IV. of the English edition was left out,
as being purely local in its bearings.

Practically, then, Merrie England is here as its author
wrote it.

A. H.

*

MERRIE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER I.

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.

We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate
the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we employ, not for talk and
ostentation, but when there is real use for it. To avow poverty with us
is no disgrace ; the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An
Athenian Citizen does not neglect the state because he takes care of his
own household. We regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs
not as harmless, but as a useless character. The great impediment to
action is not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained
by discussion preparatory to action. We make friends by conferring, not
by receiving favors. The love of honor alone is ever young, and not
riches, as some say, but honor is the delight of men when they are old
and useless. — Ihucydides.

Dear Mr. Smith, I am sorry to hear that you look upon
Socialism as a vile and senseless thing, and upon Social¬
ists as wicked or foolish men.

Nevertheless, as you have good metal in yon, and are
very numerous, I mean to argue the point with you.

You are a stanch party man, and you pride yourself
upon being “ a shrewd, hard-headed, practical man.”
You would not pride yourself upon that, for you are nat¬
urally over modest, had you not been told by political
orators that you are that kind of man.

Hence you have come to believe that you “entertain a
wholesome contempt for theories,” and have contracted

6

MERRIE ENGLAND.

a habit of calling for “ Facts ” in a peremptory manner,
like a stage brigand calling for “ Wine.”

Now, Mr. Smith, if you really are a man of hard, shrewd
sense, we shall get on very well. I am myself a plain,
practical man. I base my beliefs upon what I know and
see, and respect “ a fact ” more than a million dollars.

In these letters I shall stick to the hardest of hard facts,
and the coldest of cold reason ; and I shall appeal to that
robust common sense and love of fair play for which, I
understand, you are more famous than for your ability to
see beyond the end of your free and independent nose at
election times.

I assume, Mr. Smith, that you, as a hard-headed, prac¬
tical man, would rather be well off than badly off, and
that, with regard to your own earnings, you would rather
be paid twenty shillings in the pound than four shillings
in the pound.

And I assume that, as a humane man, you would rather
that others should not suffer, if their suffering can be
prevented.

If then, I assert that you are being defrauded, and that
others, especially weak women and young children, are
enduring much misery and wrong, and if I assert, farther,
that I know a means whereby you may obtain justice,
and they may secure peace, you will surely, as a kind and
sensible man, consent to hear me.

If your roof were leaky, or your business bad, if there
were a plague in your city, and all regular remedies had
failed, you would certainly give a hearing to any credit¬
able person who claimed to have found a cure.

I don’t mean that you would accept his remedy with¬
out thinking about it; that would be foolish, but you
would let him explain it, and if it seemed reasonable you
would try it.

MEERIE ENGLAND.

7

To reject an idea because it is new is not a proof of
shrewd sense, it is a proof of bigoted ignorance. Trade-
unionism was new once, and was denounced by the very
same people who now denounce the views I advocate.
There were many prominent politicians and writers who
declared the railway train and the telegraph to be impos¬
sible. There were many who condemned the Factory
Acts. There were many who laughed at the idea of an
Atlantic cable, and I remember when it was prophesied
of the ballot that it would lead to anarchy and revolu¬
tion.

To say that an idea is new is not to prove that it is
untrue. The oldest idea was new once ; and some of my
ideas — as, for instance, the idea that justice and health
are precious things — are considerably older than the
House of Commons or Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Na¬
tions.”

If you wish for an instance of the value of new ideas,
Mr. Smith, get a good life of Charles Darwin, and another
of George Stephenson, and read them.

I ask you, then, as a practical man, to forget me, and
to consider my arguments on their merits.

But I must also ask you to forget yourself. One of the
ancients, I think it was Pythagoras, said it was necessary
to “ get out of the body to think.” That means that when
a problem is before you you should not let any personal
prejudice, or class feeling, come between that problem
and your mind — that you should consider a case upon the
evidence alone, as a jury should.

Forget, then, that you are a joiner or a spinner, a
Catholic or a Freethinker, a moderate drinker or a teeto¬
taler, and consider the problem as a man.

If you had to do a problem in arithmetic, or if you were
cast adrift in an open boat at sea, you would not set to

8

MEERIE ENGLAND.

work as a Wesleyan, or a free-trader ; but you would tackle
the sum by the rules of arithmetic, and would row the boat
by the strength of your own manhood, and keep a look¬
out for passing ships under any flag. I ask you, then,
Mr. Smith, to hear what I have to say, and to decide by
your own judgment whether I am right or wrong.

Now then, what is the problem? I call it the problem
of life. We have here a Country and a People. The prob¬
lem is — Given a Country and a People, find how the
People may make the best of the Country and of Them¬
selves.

First, then, as to the capacities of the country and the
people.

The country is fertile and fruitful, and well stored
with nearly all the things that the people need.

The people are intelligent, industrious, strong, and
famous for their perseverance, their inventiveness and
resource.

It looks, then, as if such a people in such a country must
certainly succeed in securing health, and happiness, and
plenty for all.

But we know very well that our people, or at least the
bulk of them, have neither health, nor pleasure, nor plenty.

These are facts / and so far, I assume, you and I are
quite in accord.

Now I assert that if the labor of the people were prop¬
erly organized and wisely applied, this country would, in
return for very little toil, yield abundance for all.

I assert that the labor of the people is not properly
organized, nor wisely applied ; and I undertake to show
how it might and should be organized and applied, and
what would be the results if it were organized and applied
in accordance with my suggestions.

The ideal of Society to-day is the ideal of individual

MERRIE ENGLAND.

9

effort, or competition. That is to say, every man for him¬
self. Each citizen is to try as hard as he can to get for
himself as much money as he can, and to use it for his own
pleasure, and leave it for his own children.

That is the present personal ideal. The present na¬
tional ideal is to become “ The Workshop of the World.”
That is to say, the British people are to manufacture goods
for sale to foreign countries, and in return for those goods
are to get more money than they could obtain by develop¬
ing the resources of their own country for their own use.

My ideal is that each individual should seek his advan¬
tage in co-operation with his fellows, and that the people
should make the best of their own country before attempt¬
ing to trade with other people’s.

I propose, Mr. Smith, and I submit the proposal to you,
who are a sensible and practical man, as a sensible and
practical proposal, that we should first of all ascertain
what things are desirable for our health and happiness of
body and mind, and that we should then organize our
people with the object of producing those things in the
best and easiest way.

The idea being to get the best results with the least
labor.

And, now, Mr. Smith, if you will read the following
books for yourself, you will be in a better position to
follow me in my future letters : —

Thoreau’s “ Walden.”

“ Problems of Poverty,” John Hobson, M. A.

“ Industrial History of England,” H. de B. Gibbins, M. A.

There are also a Fabian tract called “ Facts for Social¬
ists,” and a pamphlet called “Socialism,” a reply to the
Pope, which will be useful.

10

MERRIE ENGLAND .

CHAPTER II.

THE PRACTICAL SCHOOL.

Their lands also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of
their treasures ; their land also is full of horses, neither is there any end
of their chariots. Their lands also is full of idols : they worship the
work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made. —
Isaiah.

As I said in my first chapter, the problem we have to
consider is : —

Given a country and a people, find how the people may
make the best of the country and themselves.

Before we can solve this problem, we must understand
the country and the people. We must find out their
capacities ; that is to say, what can be got from the coun¬
try ; what it will yield ; and what can be got from our¬
selves ; what we can do and be.

On these points I differ from the so-called practical
people of the Manchester School, for I believe that this
country will yield a great deal more of the good things
of life than the people need ; and that the people can be
much happier, healthier, richer, and better than they now
are.

But the Manchester School would have us believe that
our own country is too barren to feed us, and that our
people are too base and foolish to lead pure, wise, and
honest lives.

This is a difference as to facts. I will try, presently,
to show you that the facts are in my favor.

You, Mr. Smith, are a practical man; you have reason

MEHRIE ENGLAND.

11

and judgment. Therefore you would do a pleasant thing
in preference to an unpleasant thing. You would choose
a healthy and agreeable occupation in preference to an
unhealthy and disagreeable occupation. You would
rather live in a healthy and agreeable place than in an
unhealthy and disagreeable place. You would rather
work four hours a day than twelve hours a day. You
would rather do the things you would like to do, and
have the things you wish for, than do the things you dis¬
like to do, and lack the things you wish for.

You live in Oldham, and you are a spinner. If I ask
you why you live in Oldham, and why you work in the
factory, you will say that you do it in order to “ get a
living.”

I think also that you will agree with me on three points :
Firstly, that Oldham is not a nice place to live in ; sec¬
ondly, that the factory is not a nice place to work in ;
thirdly, that you don’t get as good a living as you desire.

There are some things you do, which you would rather
not do ; and there are some things you wish for and can¬
not get.

Now suppose we try to find out what are the things it
is best for us to have, and which is the best and easiest
way to get them.

I hope that up to this point I have been quite clear, and
practical, and truthful.

Of course you have read Robinson Crusoe, You know
that he was shipwrecked upon an island, and had to pro¬
vide for himself. He raised corn, tamed goats, dried
raisins, built himself a house, and made vessels of clay,
clothing of skins, a boat, and other useful things. If he
had set to work making bead necklaces and feather fans
before he secured food and lodging you would say he was
a fool, and that he did not make the most of his time

12

MERRIE ENGLAND.

and his island. But what would you call him if he had
starved and stinted himself in order to make bead neck¬
laces and feather fans for some other person who was
too lazy to work ?

Whatever you call him, you may call yourself, for you
are wasting your time and your chances in the effort to
support idle people and vain things.

Now, to our problem. How are we to make the best of
our country, and of our lives ? What things do we need
in order to secure a happy, healthy, and worthy human
life?

We may divide the things needful into two kinds :
Mental and physical. That is to say, the things needful
for the body and the things needful for the mind.

Here again I differ very much from the self-styled prac¬
tical people of the Manchester School.

My ideal is frugality of body and opulence of mind. I
suggest that we should be as temperate and as simple as
possible in our use of mere bodily necessaries, so that we
may have as much time as possible to enjoy pleasures
of a higher, purer, and more delightful kind.

Your Manchester School treat all Social and Industrial
problems from the standpoint of mere animal subsistence.
They do not seem to think that you have any mind. With
them it is a question of bread and cheese and be thank¬
ful. They are like the man in “ Our Mutual Friend ” who
estimated the needs of the ferryman’s daughter in beef
and beer. It was a question, he said, “ of so many pounds
of beef, and so many pints of porter.” That beef and
that porter were “ the fuel to supply that woman’s en¬
gine,” and, of course, she was only to have just as much
fuel as would keep the engine working at high pressure.
But I submit to you that such an estimate would be an
insult to a horse.

M EERIE ENGLAND.

13

Your Manchester School claim to be practical men,
and always swear by facts. As I said before, I reverence
facts ; but I want all the facts ; not a few of them. If I
am to give a verdict, I must hear the whole of the evi¬
dence.

Suppose a gardener imagined that all a flower needed
was earth and manure, and so planted his ferns on the
sunny side and his peaches on the shady side of his garden.
Would you call him a practical man ?

You will see what I mean. Soil is a “ fact,” and manure
is a “ fact.” But the habit of a plant is a “ fact” also, and
so are sunshine and rain “ facts.”

Turn, then, from plants to men, and tell me are appe¬
tites the only facts of human nature ? Do men need noth¬
ing but food, and shelter, and clothes ?

It is true, that bread, and meat, and wages, and sleep
are “ facts,” but they are not the only facts of life. Men
have imaginations and passions as well as appetites.

I must ask you to insist upon hearing all the evidence.
I must ask you to use your eyes and ears, to examine
your memory, to consult your own experience and the
experience of the best and wisest men who have lived, and
to satisfy yourself that although wheat and cotton and
looms and ploughs and bacon and blankets and hunger and
thirst and heat and cold are facts, they are not the only
facts, nor even the greatest facts of life.

For love is a fact, and hope is a fact, and rest, and
laughter, and music, and knowledge are facts ; and facts
which have to be remembered and have to be reckoned
with before we can possibly solve the problem of how the
people are to make the best of their country and them¬
selves.

A life which consists of nothing but eating, and drink¬
ing, and sleeping, and working is not a human life — it is

14

MERRIE ENGLAND.

the life of a beast. Such a life is not worth living. If we
are to spend all our days and nights in a kind of penal
servitude, continually toiling and suffering in order to live
we had better break at once the chains of our bitter
slavery, and die.

What, then, are the things needful for the body and the
mind of man ?

The bodily needs are two : —

Health and Sustenance.

The mental needs are three : —

Knowledge,

Pleasure,

Intercourse.

We will consider the bodily needs first, and we will
begin by finding out what things ensure good bodily
health.

To ensure good health we must lead a “ natural ” life.
The farther we get from nature, — the more artificial our
lives become, — the worse is our health.

The chief ends to health are pure air, pure water, pure
and sufficient food, cleanliness, exercise, rest, warmth,
and ease of mind.

The chief obstacles to health are impure air, impure
water, bad or insufficient food, gluttony, drunkenness,
vice, dirt, heavy labor, want of rest, exposure, and anxiety
of mind.

The sure marks of good health are physical strength
and beauty.

Look at the statue of an Ancient Greek Athlete, and
then at the form of a Modern Sweater’s Slave, and you
will see how true this is.

These are facts. Any doctor, or scientist, or artist, or
athlete will confirm these statements.

Now, I shall show you, later, that hardly any of our

MEUBIE ENGLAND.

15

people lead natural and healthy lives. I shall show you
that the average man might be very much healthier,
handsomer, and stronger than he is ; and I shall show you
that the average duration of life might easily be doubled.

Next, as to Sustenance. There are four chief things
needed to sustain life in a civilized community : —

Food,

Clothing,

Shelter, and
Fuel.

All these things should be used temperately. Enough is
better than a feast. Luxurious living is a bad and not a
good thing. You know that when a man is training for
any feat of strength or of endurance he takes plain and
pure food, and abundant rest and exercise. A rowing
man, a running man, a boxer, a cricketer, or an athlete
of any kind would never think of training on turtle soup,
game pies, and champagne. Again I say that any doctor,
scientist, artist, or athletic trainer will endorse my state¬
ment.

Now I shall show you, later, that our people are badly
clothed, and badly fed, and badly housed. That some
have more, but most have less, than is good for them ;
and that with a quarter of the labor now expended in
getting improper sustenance we might produce proper
sustenance, and plenty of it, for all.

Meanwhile, let us consider the mental needs of life.
These are

Knowledge, Pleasure, and Intercourse.

You may describe all these things as pleasures, or as
recreations, if you choose.

Of Knowledge there are almost numberless branches,
and all of them fascinating. Modern science alone is a
vast storehouse of interest and delight. Astronomy,

16

MERRIE ENGLAND.

physiology, botany, chemistry, these words sound dry
and forbidding to the man who knows nothing at all of
the science ; but to the student they are more fascinating,
more thrilling, and more marvellous than any romance.

But science is only one branch of knowledge. There
is literature, there is history, there are foreign countries
and peoples, there are languages, and laws, and philoso¬
phies to interest and to inform us. Solomon spoke well
when he said that wisdom is better than rubies. As a
mere amusement the acquirement of knowledge is above
price. But it has another value, it enables us to help our
fellow-creatures, and to leave the world better than we
found it.

As for Pleasures their name is legion. There are such
pleasures as walking, rowing, swimming, football, cricket.
There are the arts and the drama. There are the beauties
of nature. There are travel and adventure. Mere words
cannot convey an idea of the intensity of these pleasures.
Music alone is more delightful and more precious than
all the vanities wealth can buy, or all the carnal luxuries
that folly can desire. The varieties of pure and healthy
pleasures are infinite.

Then as to Intercourse. I mean by that all the exalta¬
tion and all the happiness that we can get from friend¬
ship, from love, from comradeship, and from family ties.
These are amongst the best and the sweetest things that
life can give.

Now, Mr. Smith, you are a practical and a sensible man.
I ask you to look about you and to think, and then to tell
me what share of all these things falls to the share of the
bulk. of the people; but especially to the share of the
great working masses.

In the average lot of the average workman how much
knowledge and culture, and science and art, and music

M EERIE ENGLAND. . 17

and the drama, and literature and poetry, and field sports
and exercise, and travel and change of scene ?

You know very well that our working people get little
of these things, and you know that such as they get are
of inferior quality.

Now I say to you that the people do not get enough of
the things needful for body and mind, that they do not
get them of the best, and that they do not get them be¬
cause they have neither money to pay for them nor leisure
to enjoy them.

I say, farther, that they ought to have and might have
abundance of these things, and I undertake to show you
how they can obtain them.

We hear a great deal, Mr. Smith, about the “Struggle
for Existence.”

Well, I say there is no need for any “ struggle for ex¬
istence.” I have shown you what things are necessary
to a happy and noble existence, and I say to you now that
all these things can be easily and abundantly produced.

Given our country and our people, I maintain that the
people, if rightly organized and directed, can get from
the country all that is good for them, with very little
labor.

The work needed to supply the bodily and mental needs
above named is very slight. The best things of life —
knowledge, art, recreation, friendship, and love — are all
cheap ; that is to say they can all be got with little
labor.

Why then the “ struggle for existence ” ?

So far, Mr. Smith, I have, I hope, been practical and
plain. I have indulged in no fine writing, I have used no
hard words, I have kept close to facts. There has been
nothing “ windy ” or “ sentimental” up to now. I shall

be still more practical as we go on.

2

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Tii the meantime, if you can find Ruskin’s Modern Paint¬
ers in your free library, I should advise you to read it.

There are two other books that would be valuable;
these are “ England’s Ideal,” by Edward Carpenter, and
“Signs of Change,” by Win. Morris.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

19

CHAPTER III.

TOWN V. COUNTRY.

I would not have the laborer sacrifice to the result. I would not have
the laborer sacrificed to my convenience and pride, nor to that of a great
class of such as me. Let there be worse cotton and better men. The
weaver should not be bereaved of his superiority to his work. — Emerson.

The substantial wealth of man consists in the earth he cultivates, with
its pleasant or serviceable animals and plants, and in the rightly produced
work of his own hands. . . . The material wealth of any country is
the portion of its possessions which feed3 and educates good men and

women in it . In fact it may be discovered that the true veins

of wealth are purple — and not in Rock, but in Flesh — perhaps even that
the final outcome and consummation of all wealth is in the producing as
many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human
creatures. — Ruskin.

Before we begin this chapter I must ask you to keep in
mind the fact that a man’s bodily wants are few.

I shall be well outside the mark if I say that a full-
grown healthy man can be well fed upon a daily ration of

1 lb. of bread,

1 lb. of vegetables,

1 lb. of meat.

Add to this a few groceries, a little fruit, some luxuries,
in the shape of wine, beer, and tobacco ; a shelter, a bed,
some clothing, and a few tools and articles of furniture,
and you have all the material things you need.

Remember, also, that when you have got these things
you have got all the material things you can use. A
millionaire or a monarch could hardly use more, or if he
did use more would use them to his hurt and not to his
advantage.

20

MEJRRIE ENGLAND.

You live in Oldham and work in the factory in order to
get a living. “ A living ” consists of the things above
named.

I ask you, as a practical, sensible man, whether it is not
possible to get those few simple things with less labor ;
and whether it is not possible to add to them health and
the leisure to enjoy life and develop the mind ?

The Manchester School will tell you that you are very
fortunate to get as much as you do, and that he is a
dreamer or a knave who persuades you that you can get
more.

The Manchester School is the Commercial School. The
supporters of that school will tell you that you cannot
prosper, that is to say you cannot “ get a living,” without
the capitalist, without open competition, and without
a great foreign trade.

They will tell you that you would be very foolish to raise
your own food stud's here in your own country, so long as
you can buy them more cheaply from foreign nations.
They will tell you that this country is incapable of pro¬
ducing enough food for her present population, and that
therefore your very existence depends upon keeping the
foreign trade in your hands.

Now, I shall try to prove to you that every one of these
statements is untrue. I shall try to satisfy you that : —

1. The capitalist is a curse, and not a blessing.

2. That competition is wasteful, and cruel, and
wrong.

3. That no foreign country can sell us food more
cheaply than we can produce it ; and

4. That this country is capable of feeding more
than treble her present population.

We hear a great deal about the value and extent of
our foreign trade, and are always being reminded how

M EERIE ENGLAND.

21

much we owe to our factory system, and how proud of it
we ought to be.

I despise the factory system, and denounce it as a hid¬
eous, futile, and false thing. This is one of the reasons
why the Manchester School call me a dreamer and a dan¬
gerous agitator. I will state my case to you plainly, and
ask you for a verdict in accordance with the evidence.

My reasons for attacking the factory system are : —

1. Because it is ugly, disagreeable, and mechanical.

2. Because it is injurious to public health.

3. Because it is unnecessary.

4. Because it is a danger to the national existence.

The Manchester School will tell you that the destiny of

this country is to become “The Workshop of the World.”

I say that is not true ; and that it would be a thing to
deplore if it were true. The idea that this country is to
be the “ Workshop of the World,” is a wilder dream than
any that the wildest Socialist ever cherished. But if
this country did become the “Workshop of the World”
it would at the same time become the most horrible and
the most miserable country the world has ever known.

Let us be practical, and look at the facts.

First, as to the question of beauty and pleasantness.
You know the factory districts. I ask you is it not true
that they are ugly, and dirty, and smoky, and disagree¬
able ? Compare the busy English towns of Lancashire,
of Staffordshire, of Durham, and of South Wales, with
the country towns of Surrey, Suffolk, and Hants.

In the latter counties you will get pure air, bright skies,
clear rivers, clean streets, and beautiful fields, woods, and
gardens ; you will get cattle and streams, and birds and
flowers, and you know that all these things are well worth
having, and that none of them can exist side by side with
the factory system.

22

MERRIE ENGLAND.

I know that the Manchester School will tell you that
this is mere “ sentiment.” But compare their actions with
their words.

Do you find the champions of the factory system despis¬
ing nature, and beauty, and art, and health — except in
their speeches and lectures to you ?

No. You will find these people living as far from the
factories as they can get ; and you will find them spend¬
ing their long holidays in the most beautiful parts of
England, Scotland, Ireland, or the Continent.

The pleasures they enjoy are denied to you. They
preach the advantages of the factory system because they
reap the benefits while you bear the evils.

To make wealth for themselves they destroy the beauty
and the health of your dwelling-places ; and then they sit
in their suburban villas, or on the hills and terraces of
the lovely southern countries, and sneer at the “ senti¬
mentality ” of the men who ask you to cherish beauty
and to prize health.

Or they point out to you the value of the “ wages ”
which the factory system brings you, reminding you that
you have carpets on your floors, and pianos in your par¬
lors, and a week’s holiday once a year.

But how much health or pleasure can you get out of a
cheap and vulgar carpet ? And what is the use of a piano
if you have neither leisure nor means to learn to play it ?
And why should you prize that one week in the crowded,
noisy watering-place, if health and fresh air and the great
salt sea are mere sentimental follies ?

And let me ask you is any carpet so beautiful or so
pleasant as a carpet of grass and daisies ? Is the fifth-
rate music you play upon your cheap pianos as sweet as
the songs of the gushing streams and joyous birds ? And
does a week at a spoiled and vulgar watering-place repay

MERRIE ENGLAND.

23

you for fifty-one weeks’ toil and smother in a hideous and
stinking town ?

As a practical man, would you of your own choice con¬
vert a healthy and beautiful country into an unhealthy
and hideous country, just for the sake of being able once
a year to go to Blackpool, and once a night to listen to a
cracked piano ?

Now I tell you, my practical friend, that you ought to
have, and may have, good music, and good homes, and a
fair and healthy country, and more of all the things that
make life sweet ; that you may have them at less cost of
labor than you now pay for the privilege of existing in
Oldham ; and that you can never have them if your land
becomes the “Workshop of the World.”

But the relative beauty and pleasantness of the factory
and country districts do not need demonstration. The
ugliness of one and the beauty of the other are not matters
of sentiment nor of argument — they are matters of fact.
The value of beauty is not a matter of sentiment : it is a
fact. You would rather see a squirrel than a sewer rat.
You would rather bathe in the Avon than in the Irwell.
You would prefer the fragrance of a rose-garden to the
stench of a sewage works. You would prefer woods to
slums.

As for those who sneer at beauty, as they spend fort¬
unes on pictures, on architecture, and on foreign tours,
they put themselves out of court.

Sentiment or no sentiment, beauty is better than ugli¬
ness, and health is better than disease.

Now under the factory system you must sacrifice both
health and beauty.

As to my second objection — the evil effect of the factory
system on the public health. What are the chief means
to health ?

24

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

Pure air, pure water, pure and sufficient food, cleanli¬
ness, exercise, rest, warmth, and ease of mind.

What are the invariable accompaniments of the factory
system ?

Foul air, foul water, adulterated foods, dirt, long hours

health map

BRITISH

reference.

from »o To SLO
per IOOO

ABOVE 2. 5
PER IOOO

of sedentary labor, and continual anxiety as to wages
and employment in the present, added to a terrible un¬
certainty as to existence in the future.

Look through any great industrial town in the colliery,
the iron, the silk, the cotton, or the woollen industries,

MERRIE ENGLAND.

25

and you will find hard work, unhealthy work, vile air,
overcrowding, disease, ugliness, drunkenness, and a high
death-rate. These are facts.

To begin with, I give you outline maps, copied from

Bartholomew’s Gazetteer of the British Islands, which is
the best work of its class extant.

Map 1 shows the death-rates in the British Isles.

Map 2 shows the distribution of manufactures in the
British Isles.

Examine these maps and you will find that where the

2G

MEBRIE ENGLAND.

manufactures are the greatest the death-rate is the high¬
est, and the population the most dense.

Turn from Bartholomew’s Gazetteer to the Registrar-
General’s returns. The average death-rate for England
and Wales from 1881 to 1890 was 19T in the thousand.
The death-rate of Lancashire for the same period was 22*5
per thousand. But to get a fair idea of the difference
between town and country we must contrast Lancashire
with the agricultural counties. Here are eight county
death-rates from 1881 to 1890: —

Surrey . 16-1

Kent . 16-G

Sussex . 15-7

Hants . 1G-8

Berks . 1G-2

Wilts . 16-9

Dorset . 1G-2

Lancashire . 22-5

In 1887, the latest year for which I have the figures, the
death-rates in some of the principal Lancashire towns
were : —

Bolton . 21-31

Oldham . 23-84

Salford . 23-95

Preston . . . 27-0

Blackburn . 25-48

Manshester . 28-67

And in that year the average death-rate in Surrey and
Sussex was 1G-3.

Now observe the difference between Lancashire and
Surrey. It is a difference of 6 to the thousand. Lanca¬
shire in 1881 contained 3J millions of people, or 3,500
thousands, so that the excess of deaths in the cotton
country reaches the total of 21,000.

But again, in the Registrar-General’s returns for 1891

MERRIE ENGLAND.

27

I find two tables showing the annual deaths per 100,000
of children under one year, for 1889, 1890, 1891. The first
table shows the figures for the three counties of Hertford,
Wilts, and Dorset; the second for the three towns, Pres¬
ton, Leicester, and Blackburn.

Three farming counties . 9,717

Three manufacturing towns . 21,803

That is to say that the death-rate of children in those
three towns is more than twice as high as the death-rate
of children in those three counties.

But, again, Dr. Marshall, giving statistics of recruiting
in this country, shows that not only were the country
recruits taller than those from the towns, but he adds
that “ in every case the men born in the country were
found to have better chests than those born in towns, the
difference in chest measurement being proportionately
greater than the difference in stature.” According to
Dr. Beddoe :

The natives of Edinburgh and Glasgow are on an average from one to
two inches shorter, and about fifteen to twenty pounds lighter than the
rural population of various parts of Scotland. The statistics of the North¬
umberland Light Infantry give 5ft. 6in. as the height of the natives of New¬
castle ; while the rural volunteers have an average height of 5ft. 8in. to
5ft. 10in., and are “ of course much heavier than the townsmen. ”

Drs. Cliassage and Dally, in a work on gymnasia, give
tables comparing the rustics and townsmen of France,
which show the former to be taller and more robust.
Indeed, as Mr. Gattie, in an article on the physique of
European armies, says : —

A glance at the tables suffices to show the physical superiority of the
countrymen at all points. Looking more closely, we find that, although
the townsmen who had followed outdoor pursuits were shorter and lighter
than the rest, they were able to lift and carry much greater weights.

28

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Again, the official statistics of Switzerland tell the same
story, thus : —

The butchers and bakers have much the best development, both of arm
and chest ; the carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons coming next. The
bakers are not so tall as the butchers, blacksmiths, and carpenters, and
the masons are very much shorter, but their arms are proportionately
better developed than those of the carpenters and blacksmiths. The
agricultural laborers and cheesemen are next in order, and then follow
the wheelwrights, saddlers, and sedentary operatives, “the weakest men
of all being the weavers ; ” while the tailors are the shortest and are
scarcely less feeble.

These are facts ; and they seem to prove my second
point, that the factory system is bad for the public
health.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

29

CHAPTER IV.

THE LIFE OF THE WORKER.

The people live in squalid dens, where there can be no health and no
hope, but dogged discontent at their own lot, and futile discontent at the
wealth which they see possessed by others. — Thorold Rogers.

It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for
my sight has been whetted by experience ; always on the limits, trying to
get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough,
called by the Latins aes alienum, another’s brass, for some of their coins
were made of brass ; still living, and dying, and buried by this other’s
brass ; always promising to pay, promising to pay to-morrow, and dying
to-day insolvent ; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many
modes — only not state-prison offences ; lying, flattering, voting, contract¬
ing yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of
thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to
let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import
his groceries for him ; making yourselves sick that you may lay up some¬
thing against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest or
in a stocking behind the plastering, or more safely in the brick bank, no
matter where, no matter how much or how little. — Thoreau.

I feel sure that the time will come when people will find it difficult to
believe that a rich community such as ours, having such command over
external Nature, could have submitted to live such a mean, shabby, dirty
life as we do. — Win. Morris.

The problem of life is, “ Given a country and a people,
show how the people can make the most of the country
and themselves.” Before we go on, let us try to judge
how far we have succeeded in answering the problem.

The following are facts which no man attempts to
deny : —

1. Large numbers of honest and industrious
people are badly fed, badly clothed, and badly
housed.

30

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

2. Many thousands of people die every year from
preventable diseases.

3. The average duration of life amongst the
population is unnaturally short.

4. Very many people, after lives of toil, are
obliged to seek refuge in the workhouse, where
they die despised and neglected, branded with the
shameful brand of pauperism.

5. It is an almost invariable rule that those who
work hardest and longest in this country are the
worst paid and the least respected.

6. The wealthiest men in our nation are men who
never did a useful day’s work.

7. Wealth and power are more prized and more
honored than wisdom, or industry, or virtue.

8. Hundreds of thousands of men and women,
willing to work, are unable to find employment.

9. While on the one hand wages are lowered on
account of over-production of coal, of cotton, and of
corn, on the other hand many of our working people
are short of bread, of fuel, and of clothing.

10. Nearly all the land and property in this
country are owned by a few idlers, and most of the
laws are made in the interests of those few rich
people.

11. The national agriculture is going rapidly to
ruin to the great injury and peril of the State.

12. Through competition millions of men are em¬
ployed in useless and undignified work, and all the
industrial machinery of the nation is thrown out of
gear, so that one greedy rascal may overreach
another.

And we are told that all these things must remain as
they are, in order that you may be able to “ get a living.”

MER E IE ENGLAND.

31

What sort of a living do you get?

Your life may be divided into four sections : Working,
eating, recreation, and sleeping.

As to work. You are employed in a factory for from
53 to 70 hours a week. Some of your comrades work
harder, and longer, and in worse places. Still, as a rule,
it may be said of all your class that the hours of labor
are too long, that the labor is monotonous, mechanical,
and severe, and that the surroundings are often unhealthy,
nearly always disagreeable, and in many cases dangerous.

Do you know the difference between “work” and
“toil”? It is the difference between the work of the
gardener and the toil of the navvy — between the work
of the wood carver and the toil of the wood chopper.

We hear a good deal of talk about the idleness of the
laboring classes and the industry of the professional
classes. There is a difference in the work. The surgeon,
or the sculptor, following the work of his choice , may well
work harder than the collier, drudging for a daily wage.

An artist loves his work, and sees in it the means of
winning fame, perhaps fortune; an artisan sees in his
toil a dull mechanical task, to be done for bread, but
never to be made to yield pleasure, or praise, or profit.

As a rule, your work is hard and disagreeable.

Now, what are your wages ?

I don’t mean how much a week do you get; but what
life do you get as the reward of your toil ?

The question is how do you live? What will your
money buy?

As I have shown already, you do not get enough leis¬
ure, nor enough fresh air, nor enough education, nor
enough health, and your town is very ugly and very dirty
and very dull. But let us go into details.

I have often seen you turn up your nose with scorn at

32

MERRIE ENGLAND.

the sight of a gypsy. Yet the gypsy is a healthier, a
stronger, a braver, ancl a wiser man than you, and lives
a life more pleasant and free and natural than yours.

Not that the gypsy is a model citizen ; but you may
learn a great deal from him ; and I doubt whether there
is anything he could learn from you.

And now let us see how you live. First of all, in the
matter of food. Your diet is not a good one. It is not
varied enough, and nearly all the things you eat and drink
are adulterated.

I am much inclined to think that a vegetarian diet is
the best, and I am sure that alcholic liquors are unneces¬
sary. But this by the way. If you do drink beer and
spirits, it would be better to have them pure. At present
nearly all your liquors are abominable.

But there is one thing about your diet worse even than
the quality of the food, and that is the cookery. Mrs.
Smith is an excellent woman, and I hereby make my
bow to her, but she does not know what cookery means.

John Smith, it is a solemn and an awful truth, one
which it pains me to utter, but you never ate a beefsteak,
and you never saw a cooked potato.

God strengthen thy digestion, John, ’tis sore tried.
Oh, the soddened vegetables, the flabby fish, the leathery
steak, and the juiceless joint, I know them. Alas ! Cook¬
ery is an art, and almost a lost art in this country ; or
shall we say, an art unfound ?

Poor Mrs. Smith gets married and faces the paste-board
and the oven with the courage of desperation, and the
hope of ignorance. She resembles the young man who
had never played the fiddle, but had no doubt he could
plajr it if he tried. And sometimes he does try, and so
Mrs. Smith tries to cook.

From food we will turn to clothing. Oh, it is pitiful.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

33

Do you know the meaning of the words “ form ” and
“ color ” ? Look at our people’s dress. Observe the cut
of it, the general drabness, grayness, and gloom. Those
awful black bugles, those horrific sack coats, those deadly
hats and bonnets, and they do say, that crinoline — All,
heaven ! That we should call these delicate creatures
ours and not their fashion plates. The dresses, but es¬
pecially the Sunday clothes, of the working classes are
things too sad for tears.

Costume should be simple, healthy, convenient, and
beautiful. Modern costume is none of these.

This is chiefly because the fashion of our dress is left
to fops and tailors, whereas it ought to be left to artists
and designers.

But beside the ugliness of your dress, it is also true
that it is mean. It is mean because hardly anything you
wear is what it pretends to be, because it is adulterated
and jerry-made, and because it is insufficient. Yes, in
nearly all your houses there is, despite our factory sys¬
tem, a decided scarcity of shirts and socks and sheets and
towels and table linen.

Come we now to the home. Your houses are not what
they should be. I do not allude to the inferior cottage —
that is beneath notice. Here in my town we have some
forty thousand houses unfit for habitation. But let us
consider the abode of the more fortunate artisan. It has
many faults. It is badly built, badly arranged, and badly
fitted. The sanitation is bad. The rooms are much too
small. There are no proper appliances for cleanliness.
The windows are not big enough. There is a painful
dearth of light and air. The cooking appliances are sim¬
ply barbarous.

Again, the houses are very ugly and mean. The streets
are too narrow. There are no gardens. There are no

3

34

MEREIE ENGLAND.

trees. Few working-class families have enough bedrooms,
and the bathroom is a luxury not known in small tene¬
ments.

In fine, your houses are ugly, unhealthy, inconvenient,
dark, ill-built, ill-fitted, and dear.

This is due, in a great measure, to the cost of land. I
will tell you soon why land is so expensive.

Moreover, instead of your making the most of your
room you will persist in crowding your house with hideous
and unnecessary furniture. Furniture is one of your
household gods. You are a victim to your furniture, and
your wife is a slave. Did it ever occur to you that your
only use for the bulk of your household goods is to clean
them ? It is so, and yet you keep on striving to get more
and more furniture for your wife to wait upon.

Just cast your eye over the following description of a
Japanese house, John, and see if it does not suggest some¬
thing to you ; and do read “ Walden.” If you read it well
it will save you much money in furniture, and your wife
much toil in acting as a slave to the sideboard and best
parlor suite : —

Simplicity and refinement are the essential characteristics of life in
Japan, observes the Hospital. The houses, which are spacious, are con¬
structed without foundations. Light wooden uprights resting on flat
stones support the thatched or tiled roof. The walls, both outside and
those which divide the rooms, are formed of latticed panels which slide
over one another, or can be removed altogether if desired. These panels
are filled with translucent paper. At night the house is closed in with
wooden shutters. The rooms, winch are raised about a foot above the
ground, are covered with soft padded matting kept spotlessly clean. In
the centre of the living room is a shallow, square pit lined with metal and
filled with charcoal, for the purposes of cooking and warming, or the
rooms are warmed with movable metal braziers. There is no furniture
present , no chairs, tables, beds, chests of drawers, pictures, or knick-knacks.
The matted floor serves alike for chairs, table, and bed. To keep it abso¬
lutely clean, all boots, shoes, and sandals are left on the ground outside.
The absence of furniture means the absence of many cares, and as two

MERE IE ENGLAND.

35

wooden chopsticks and small lacquer bowls serve for all the purposes of
eating, there is no need for plate, glass, knives, forks, spoons, dinner serv¬
ices, and table linen. Thus life is simplified, though it loses at the same
time none of its refinement, for no people can be more dainty and partic¬
ular in their food, more neat and beautiful in dress, and more courteous
and self-restrained in manner than the Japanese, Kneeling on the floor
all work is done, and at night time the padded quilts or futons are spread
on the matting, and, with one quilt beneath and another above, sleep can
be enjoyed as comfortably as in bed. Before the evening meal is taken, it
is the invariable custom throughout Japan for every member of the house¬
hold to take a dip in the family bath, which is heated to a temperature of
110 deg. to 120 deg., at which heat it is found to be very refreshing.

Poor Mrs. John Smith, her life is one long slavery.
Cooking, cleaning, managing, mending, washing clothes,
waiting on husband and children, her work is never done.
And amid it all she suffers the pains and anxieties of
childbearing, and the suckling of children. There are no
servants, and few workers, so hard-wrought and so ill-
paid as the wife of an artisan. What are her hours of labor,
my trade union friends ? What pleasure has she, what
rest, what prospect ?

Cannot be helped, do you say ? Nonsense. Do you
suppose the Japanese wife works as your wife works?
Not at all. My dear John, in your domestic as in your
industrial and political affairs, all that is needed is a little
common sense. We are living at present in a state of
anarchy and barbarism, and it is your fault, and not the
fault of the priest and politicians who dupe and plunder
you.

And now we come to the last item in your life, you
recreation. Here, Mr. Smith, you are very badly served.
You have hardly anything to amuse you. Music, art,
athletics, science, the drama, and nature are almost denied
to you. A few cheerless museums filled with Indian war
clubs, fag ends of tapestry, and dried beetles ; a few third-
rate pictures, a theatre or two where you have choice

36

MERRIE ENGLAND.

between vulgar burlesque and morbid melodrama, a
sprinkling of wretched music (?) halls, one or two sleepy
night-schools, a football field and sometimes — for the bet¬
ter paid workers — a cricket ground, make up the sum of
your life’s pleasures. Well — yes, there are plenty of
public-houses, and you can gamble. The betting lists and
racing news have a corner in all the respectable papers.

One of the most palpable and painful deficiencies, John,
in all your towns is the deficiency of common-land, of
open spaces. This is because land is so dear. Why is
land dear ? I will tell you by and by.

The chief causes of the evils I have pointed out to you,
John, are competition, monopoly, and bad management.
There is a pamphlet, called “ Milk and Postage Stamps,”
by “ Elihu.” Read it. It shows you the waste of labor
that comes of competition.

Go into any street and you will see two or three carts
delivering milk. A cart, a pony, and a man to carry
milk to a few houses ; and one postman serves a whole
district ; as one milkman and one horse could, were it
not for competition.

Again, in each house there is a woman cooking a dinner
for one family, or washing clothes for one family. And
the woman is over-worked, and the cooking is badly done,
and the house is made horrible by steam and the odors
of burnt fat. So with all the things we do and use. We
have two grocers’ shops next door to each other, each
with a staff of servants, each with its own costly fixtures.
Yet one big store would do as well, and would save half
the cost and labor. Fancy a private post-office in every
street. How much would it cost to send a letter then?

So now let me tell you roughly what 1 suggest as an
improvement on things as they now are.

First of all I would set men to work to grow wheat

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

37

and fruit and rear cattle and poultry for our own use.
Then I would develop the fisheries and construct great
fish-breeding lakes and harbors. Then I would restrict
our mines, furnaces, chemical works, and factories to the
number actually needed for the supply of our own people.
Then I would stop the smoke nuisance by developing
water power and electricity.

In order to achieve these ends I would make all the
land, mills, mines, factories, works, shops, ships, and rail¬
ways the property of the people.

I would have the towns rebuilt with wide streets, with
detached houses, with gardens and fountains and avenues
of trees. I would make the railways, the carriage of
letters, and the transit of goods as free as the roads and
bridges.

I would make the houses loftier and larger, and clear
them of all useless furniture. I would institute public
dining halls, public baths, public wash-houses on the best
plans, and so set free the' hands of those slaves — our
women.

I would have public parks, public theatres, music halls,
gymnasiums, football and cricket fields, public halls and
public gardens for recreation and music and refreshment.
I would have all our children fed and clothed and
educated at the cost of the State. I would have them all
taught to play and to sing. I would have them all
trained to athletics and to arms. I would have public
halls of science. I would have the people become their
own artists, actors, musicians, soldiers, and police. Then,
by degrees I would make all these things free. So that
clothing, lodging, fuel, food, amusement, intercourse,
education, and all the requirements for a perfect human
life should be produced and distributed and enjoyed by
the people without the use of money.

38

ME BRIE ENGLAND.

Now, Mr. John Smith, practical and hard-headed man,
look upon the two pictures. You may think that mine
represents a state of things that is unattainable; but
you must own that it is much fairer than the picture of
things as they are.

As to the possibility of doing what I suggest, we will
consider all that in a future chapter. At present ask
yourself two questions : —

1. Is life as happy as it might be ?

2. Is my life — Merrie England — a better place
than the England in which we now live ?

ME liR IE ENGLAND.

39

CHAPTER Y.

THE BITTEIl COST OF A BAD SYSTEM.

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere igno¬
rance and mistake, aro so occupied with factitious cares and superfluously
coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their
fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that.
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day ;
he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to me ; his labor would
bo depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a
machine. How can he remember well his ignorance — which his grow thre-
quires — who has so often to use his knowledge ? We should feed and clothe
him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials before we
judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits,
can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat
ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. — Thoreciu.

And I believe that this claim for a healthy body for all of us carries with
it all other due claims; for who knows where the seeds of disease, which
even rich people suffer from, were first sown ? From the luxury of an
ancestor, perhaps; yet often, I suspect, from his poverty. — Wm. Morris.

I have been asked to contribute to the purchase of the Alexandra Park,
and I will not; and beg you, my working readers, to understand, once for
all, that I wish your homes to be comfortable, and refined ; and that I will
resist to the utmost of my power, all schemes founded on the vile modern
notion that you are to bo crowded in kennels till you are nearly dead, that
other people may make money by your work, and then taken out in squads
by tramway and railway, to be revived and refined by science and art. Your
first business is to make your homes healthy and delightful; then, keep
your wives and children there, and lot your return to them be your daily
“ holy-day.” — RusJdn.

The chief struggle of your life, Mr. Smith, is the strug¬
gle to get a living. The chief object of these letters is to
convince you of three facts : —

40

MERRIE ENGLAND.

1. That with all your labor and anxiety you do
not get a good living.

2. That you might and should get a good living
with a third of the trouble you now take to keep
out of a pauper’s suit.

3. That though you worked twenty hours a day
and piled the earth with wealth you could have
no more than a good living out of all the wealth
you produced.

Nature declares, Mr. Smith, that a man shall live tem¬
perately, or suffer for it ; Nature also declares that a man
shall not live very long. So that in the richest state a
citizen can enjoy no more than a natural amount, and
that a small one, of material things, nor can he enjoy those
for many years.

In short, the material needs of life are few and easily
supplied.

But the range of the spiritual and intellectual pleasures
and capacities is very wide. That is to say that the
pleasures and powers of the mind are practically bound¬
less.

The great nation is not the nation with the most wealth ;
but the nation with the best men and women.

Now the best part of man is his mind, therefore the
best men and women are those with the best minds.

But in this country, and at this time, the bulk of the
people do not cultivate their minds.

We have here, in the untrained, unused minds of a
noble race of people an immense power for greatness lying
fallow, like an unfilled field. This is a more serious
national loss, as I hope to show you, than if all our
mines and farms had never been “opened up to com¬
merce.”

ME ERIE ENGLAND. 41

Well, my ideal, as I said before, is Frugality of Body
and Opulence of Mind.

I propose to make our material lives simple ; to spend
as little time and labor as possible upon the production of
food, clothing, houses, and fuel, in order that we may have
more leisure.

And I propose to employ that leisure in the enjoyment
of life and the acquirement of knowledge.

It is as though I said, “ You have in each day 24 hours.
You give 8 hours to sleep, 10 or 12 to work (‘earning a
living ’), and the rest, or most of it, to folly ; go, then, and
of your sixteen waking hours spend but four in ‘ getting
a living,’ and the other twelve in pleasure and in learn¬
ing.”

Before I attempt to show you in detail how I think you
might profitably spend your leisure time, allow me to call
your attention to some of the ways in which you now
waste your time ; yes, and waste your labor also.

We will begin by a brief inquiry into the ordinary
domestic waste of time and labor and money that goes on
in an average working class home.

In my last letter I spoke of the drudgery of Mrs. Smith’s
life. You know that each family has its own dinner
cooked daily ; that each wife has her own washing day
and baking day ; that she has her own cooking range and
implements ; and that she makes a special journey to the
shops once a day, or once a week, and buys her food and
other necessaries in small quantities.

Take a working-class street of one hundred houses.
Consider the waste therein. For the convenience of one
hundred families you have

One hundred small inconvenient wash-kitchens.
One hundred ditto ditto ovens.

One hundred ditto ditto drying-grounds.

42

MERE IE ENGLAND.

One hundred wringing machines — turned by hand.

You have one hundred dinners to cook every day. You
have, every week, one hundred miserable washing days;
you have one hundred women going out to buy a pound
of tea and sugar, or other trifles.

Consider the cost of the machines, the cost of coal, the
labor and the trouble of the wives expended.

Now cast your eyes over these extracts. This is from
“Problems of Poverty,” by John A. Hobson, M. A.

The poor, partly of necessity, partly by habit, make their purchases in
minute quantities. A single family has been known to make seventy-two
distinct purchases of tea within seven weeks, and the average purchases
of a number of poor families for the same period amount to twenty-
seven. Their groceries aro bought largely by the ounce, their meat or fish
by the halfpenny-worth, their coal by the hundredweight or even by the
pound.

This is from the same book : —

Astounding facts are adduced as to the prices paid by the poor for com¬
mon articles of consumption, especially for vegetables, dairy produce,
groceries, and coal. The price of fresh vegetables, such as carrots,
parsnips, etc., in East London is not infrequently ten times the price at
which the same articles can be purchased wholesale from the growers.

This is from “ The Co-operative Movement To-Day,” by
G. J. Holyoake :

It may be assumed that 100 shops earn on an average £2 a week, or
£100 a year ; thus the hundred shops would earn £10,000 a year. Thus
it is evident that every 4,000 poor families in a town actually pay £10,000 a
year for having their humble purchases handed to them over a counter.

And Mr. Holyoake proceeds to show how by establishing
one great central store the great bulk of this loss would
be saved.

I said to you, when I began these articles, that I am a
practical man, and speak from what I have seen. I know
all about those small purchases, and big prices. I have

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

43

picked up half-a-dozen empty bottles off as many ashpits,
when a child, and sold them for a penny to buy coal. I
have gone out many a time to buy a quarter of an ounce of
tea and a farthing’s worth of milk. They taught stern
lessons in my school.

Now let me describe a different kind of experience, in a
different school.

A company of soldiers numbers from eighty to a
hundred men. The allowance of food to each man is fib.
of meat and 1 lb. of bread. But besides that each man
pays 3d. a day for “ groceries,” consisting of tea, coffee,
milk, vegetables, and extra bread.

Now, if each man had a separate kitchen and cooked
his own meals, that would mean a great waste of room
and money and time, and it would also mean very poor
feeding.

But each company strikes a man off duty as cook, and
there is a general kitchen, where the cooks of the whole,
or sometimes half the battalion prepare the meals. The
result is better and cheaper messing and less labor and

dirt.

Take, again, the case of a sergeants’ mess. The ser¬
geants have the same ration — 1 lb. of bread and f lb. of
meat a day, and they pay about 12 cents a day for “ mess¬
ing.” One sergeant is appointed “caterer,” and his duty
is to expend the messing money and superintend the
messing. He is, in fact, a kind of temporary landlord, or
club steward.

I often filled that place, and I found that when, as
occurred on detachment, we had only five or six sergeants
in mess, it was very difficult to feed them on the money ;
but at headquarters, with thirty in mess, we could live
well and afford luxuries on the same allowance per head.

With these facts in our mind, let us go back to our

44

MERRIE ENGLAND.

street of one hundred working-class families. Suppose,
instead of keeping up the wasteful system I described,
we abolish all those miserable and imperfect drying-
grounds, wringing machines, wash-kitchens, and kitchen-
ranges, and arrange the street on communal lines.

We set up one laundry, with all the best machinery;
we set up one big drying- field ; we set up one great kitch¬
en, one general dining-hall, and one pleasant tea-garden.
Then we buy all the provisions and other things in large
quantities, and we appoint certain wives as cooks and
laundresses, or, as is the case with many military duties,
we let the wives take the duties in turn. Don’t you see
how much better and how much cheaper the meals would
be ? Don’t you see how much easier the lives of our poor
women would be ? Don’t you see how much more com¬
fortable our homes would be ? Don’t you see how much
more sociable and friendly we should become ?

So with the housework when wre had simple houses and
furniture. Imagine the difference between the cleaning
of all the knives by a rapid knife machine turned by an
engine, and the drudgery of a hundred wives scrubbing
at a hundred clumsy knifeboards.

I need not go into greater detail ; you can elaborate the
the idea for yourself. Let us now turn from domestic to
commercial wraste.

Commercial waste is something appalling. The cause of
commercial waste is competition. The chief channels of
commercial waste are account-keeping, bartering, and
advertising. If vre produced goods simply for vse instead
of for sale, we should save all this waste. But consider
the immense number of cashiers, bookkeepers, clerks,
salesmen, shopmen, accountants, commercial travellers,
agents, and advertisement canvassers employed in our
trade.

METtRIE ENGLAND.

45

Take the one item of advertisement alone. There are
draughtsmen, paper-makers, printers, bill-posters, paint¬
ers, carpenters, gilders, mechanics, and a perfect army of
other people all employed in making advertisement bills,
pictures, hoardings, and other abominations — for what f

To enable one soap or patent-medicine dealer to secure
more orders than his rival. I believe I am well within
the mark when I say that some firms spend $ 500,000
a year in advertisements.

And who pays it? You pay it; you , the practical,
hard-headed, shrewd workman. You pay for everything,
you silly fellow.

There is another element of waste, which consists in
the production of useless things ; but of that I will speak
at another time.

I will also show you in a future letter, how the same
competition which causes waste causes also a wicked
obstruction of progress. At present just consider these
questions. Why do gas companies oppose the establish¬
ment of electric-lighting companies ? Is it because they
think gas is the better light? Ilev, John?

I said just now that we would consider the question of
how to employ the leisure we should secure in a well-
ordered state. Let us get an idea what that leisure would
he.

At present less than one-third of the population are
engaged in producing necessaries.

This one-third of the people produce enough neces¬
saries for all.

Now take the sum in two ways. If one-third produce
enough for all, then three-thirds will produce three times
as much as we need. Or, if one-third produce enough
for all by working nine hours a day, then three-thirds will
produce enough for all by working three hours a day.

46

MERRIE ENGLAND.

So we shall have plenty of leisure. What are we to da
with it?

One use for it is the acquirement of knowledge. I will
give you two very striking examples of the kind of work
that needs doing.

Take, first, the Germ theory of disease. I am a very
ignorant man, and can only offer hints. Read this : —

If t.ho particular microbe of each contagious disease were known, tko
conditions of its life and activity understood, and the circumstances de¬
structive of its life ascertained, there is great probability that its multipli¬
cation might be arrested and the disease caused by it be abolished.

Consumption, typhoid and typhus fevers, cholera, and
many other plagues are spread by small creatures called
microbes. At present we do not know enough about
these microbes to exterminate them. That is one thing
well worth finding out.

Take next the subject of agricultural chemistry. Read
this : —

In studying the utilization of vegetable products for obtaining the vari¬
ous animal matters which are used as food, etc., agricultural chemistry
enters into a higher and more difficult field. Although many useful prac¬
tical results have been obtained, this department of our knowledge is ex¬
tremely incomplete.

You remember what I told you about the yield of the
land. Given a thorough knowledge of agricultural chem¬
istry, and there is no ^doubt that we might produce more
food with less labor. So that is another thing worth know¬
ing.

Now I know your absurd modesty, John Smith, and
how ready you are to despise your own efforts ; and I
can almost hear you saying, “ What can ignorant men like
us do in these difficult sciences ? ”

But, John, I don’t flatter you, as you know, but you

MERBIE ENGLAND.

47

have brains, and good brains, if you only had the chance
to use them. Sometimes a few of you do get a chance to
use them. There was William Smith, the greatest Eng¬
lish geologist, he was a poor farmer’s son, and chiefly
self-taught ; there was Sir William Ilerschel, the great
astronomer, he played the oboe in a watering-place band ;
there were Faraday, the bookbinder, and Sir Humphrey
Davy, the apothecary’s apprentice, both great scientists ;
there were James Watt the mathematical instrument
maker, and George Stephenson the collier, and Arkwright
the barber, and Jacquard the weaver, and John Hunter
the great anatomist, who was a poor Scotch carpenter.
Those men did some good in science ; and why not
others ?

Ah ! Why not ? That is the question. The common
people are like an un tilled, unwatered, and un weeded
garden. No one has yet studied or valued the capacities
of men. We know that some few of the Hunter and
Herscliel stamp have come out well, and some of us think
that when a man has brains he must come out well ; but
that is a mistake. Only here and there, chiefly by good
luck, does one of our clever poor men succeed in being use¬
ful, and in developing his force — or part of it.

I will speak from personal experience. I know several
men, poor and unknown, who have in them great capacity.
I have now in my mind’s eye a young man, who might
have been a very fine writer. But he is poor, and he has
no knowledge of writing, no knowledge of style or gram¬
mar, and if he had would find it very difficult to get
work.

I once knew a blacksmith, a man of strong character,
of great probity, a born orator, a man of intellect. Often
I have heard him, as he beat on the red iron, beat out
also, in rough homely language, most beautiful and forci-

48

ME ]\Ii IE ENGLAND.

ble thoughts. John, he could not read or write. He was
of middle-age, he had a large family, he did not suspect
that he was clever.

Take my own case. I became a writer by accident —
by a series of accidents — and not that until I was thirty-
four. And I have done fairly well, and have been very
lucky. But I am sure I should have done better at a
quite different kind of work. And I am sure that if my
mother had not taught me to read and encouraged me to
love literature, I should never have been a writer at all.

But suppose my mother had died when my father died,
or suppose she had been an ignorant woman, or a care¬
less one. Where would Nunquam have gone to? He
would probably be now in the grave, or in a prison. Yet
he would have taken with him to the churchyard or the
treadmill the same mind that is now struggling with this
task — a task too great for it — the task of persuading
John Smith, of Oldham, to do his duty as a husband, as
a father, as a citizen, and as a man.

So consider, what chance have the poor? Education
is so dear. The sciences and the arts are locked up, and
the privileged classes hold the key ; and down in Ancoats
and the Seven Dials the wretched mothers feed our young
Faradays and Miltons on gin, and send them out ignorant
and helpless to face the winter wind and the vice and
disease of the stews.

It makes me angry when I think of it, and I must be
calm and practical, because you, John Smith, are such a
shrewd, hard-headed man — God help you.

John, John Smith, of Oldham, remember what noble
men and women have come from the ranks of the common
people.

Now, at present the working people of this country live
under conditions altogether monstrous. Their labor is

MERE IE ENGLAND.

49

much too heavy, their pleasures are too few, and in their
close streets and crowded houses decency and health and
cleanliness are well-nigh impossible.

It is not only the wrong of this that I resent, it is the
waste. Look through the slums, John, and see what child¬
hood, girlhood, womanhood, and manhood have there
become. Think what a waste of beauty, of virtue, of
strength, and of all the power and goodness that go to
make a nation great is being consummated there by igno¬
rance and by injustice.

For, depend upon it every one of our brothers or sisters
ruined or slain by poverty or vice, is a loss to the nation
of so much bone and sinew, of so much courage and skill,
of so much glory and delight.

Cast your eyes, then, my practical friend, over the
Registrar-General’s returns, and imagine if you can how
many gentle nurses, good mothers, sweet singers, brave
soldiers, and clever artists, inventors, and thinkers are
swallowed up every year in that ocean of crime and
sorrow, which is known to the official mind as “ The high
death-rate of the wage-earning classes.”

Alas, John, the pity of it.

Well, I want to stop that waste, my practical friend. I
want to give those cankered flowers light and air, and
clear their roots of weeds.

And in my “Merrie England” there will be great
colleges for the study of science, and the training of the
people, so that the whole force of the national mind may
be brought to bear upon those important questions of
agriculture, of manufactures, and of medicine, which are
now but partly understood, because it is the rich and not
the clever who consider them, and because they only work
selfishly and secretly, in opposition instead of in mutual
helpfulness.

4

50

MERRIE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER VI.

WHO MAKES THE WEALTH, AND WHO GETS IT?

The old original capitalist who has rested from his labors, and whose
works do follow him — creative, frugal, and laborious — he looms ever “ at
the back of the beyond.” It is a beautiful conception, this of the first
capitalist, and only shows that poetry, like hope, springs eternal in the
human breast — even the economical breast. Like Prester John and the
Wandering Jew, he has a weird charm about him that almost makes one
love him. But our reverence for an old legend must not blind us to
historical fact, to wit, that the real origin of modern capital is to be found
in the forcible expropriation of the peasantry from the soil, in oppressive
laws to keep down wages, in the plunder and enslavement of the inhabit-
tants of the New World and of Africa, in the merciless over-working of
children in factories, etc., etc. — Belfort Bax.

As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share
of almost all the produce which the laborer can either raise or collect
from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the
labor employed upon land. . . .

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the
landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and
demand a rent, even for its natural produce. . . . — Adam Smith.

How contempt of human rights is the essential element in building up
the great fortunes whose growth is such a marked feature of our develop¬
ment we have already seen. And just as clearly may we see that from
the same cause spring poverty and pauperism. The tramp is the comple¬
ment of the millionaire. — Henry George.

In a rude and violent state of society it continually happens that the
person who has capital is not the very person who has saved it, but some
one who, being stronger, or belonging to a more powerful community, has
possessed himself of it by plunder. And even in a state of things several
degrees more advanced, the increase of capital has been in a great
measure derived from privations which, though essentially the same with
saving, are not generally called by that name, because not voluntary.
The actual producers have been slaves, compelled to produce as much as
force could extort from them, and to consume as little as self-interest, or
the usually very slender humanity of their task-masters would permit. —
Jno. Stuart MiU.

Now, John, what are the evils of which we complain?

ME ERIE ENGLAND.

51

Lowness of wages, length of working hours, uncertainty
of employment, insecurity of the future, low standards of
public health and morality, prevalence of pauperism and
crime, and the existence of false ideals of life.

I will give you a few examples of the things I mean.
It is estimated that in England, with its population of
thirty-six millions, there are generally about 700,000 men
out of work. There are about 800,000 paupers. Of every
thousand persons who die in Merrie England over nine
hundred die without leaving any property at all. About
eight millions of people exist always on the borders of
destitution. About twenty millions are poor. More than
half the national income belongs to about ten thousand
people. About thirty thousand people own fifty-five
fifty-sixths of the land and capital of the kingdom, but of
thirty-six millions of people only 1 \ millions get above
$15 a week. The average income per head of the work¬
ing classes is about $75 a year, or less than 25 cents a day.
There are millions of our people working under conditions
and living in homes that are simply disgraceful. The
sum of crime, vice, drunkenness, gambling, prostitution,
idleness, ignorance, want, disease, and death is appalling.

These are facts. They are facts which stare us in the
face in every town, and at all hours of the day and night.
They are facts so well known thatl need not rake the Blue
Books for statistics to confirm them. I wish to use as
few figures as possible. I also wish to avoid angry words.
Therefore, Mr. Smith, I simply point out these evils and
ask you as a practical and honest man whether you don’t
think they ought to be remedied.

To what are the above evils due ? They are due to the
unequal distribution of wealth, and to the absence of
justice and order from our society.

52

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Consider, first, the distribution of the annual earnings.
The following figures are given on the authority of Giffen,
Levi, and Mulholland : —

Gross national earnings . $6,750,000,000

Amount paid in rent . 1,220,000,000

Amount paid in interest . 1,250,000,000

Salaries of middle-classes and profits of employers &c. . 1,800,000,000

Wages of the working classes . 2,590,000,000

That is to say, the workers earn 6,750 millions. Of
that the Rich take, in rent and interest, 2,550 millions,
and the Rich and Middle-classes, in profits and salaries,
take another 300 millions, or a total of 4,250 millions,
leaving for the working classes little more than one-third
(2,500 millions).

Now for the proportions. As I said just now, there are
less than 1J millions who pay income tax on incomes of
$750 a year and upwards. Multiply 7^ millions by 3 and
you get 21^- millions as the gross number of men, women,
and children of the middle and upper classes. Four-and-
a-half millions will be just one-eighth of our population.
Thus we find that 4,560 millions go to one-eighth of the
population, and 2,500 millions to the other seven-eighths

Speaking in round numbers the averages per head are
as follows : —

Middle and upper classes, per year, $920.

Working classes, per year, $80.

The following diagram will give you an idea of the in¬
equality of this division: —

Classes. Income.

********* ******

******

*****

MERE IE ENGLAND.

53

Masses.

'7V 'TV 'Tv* 'Tv 'TV 'TV "TV '7V -TV

**********

Income.

******

.y, w. .y. ,y. .y.

tv Tv Tv Tv 'tv*

**********

AA. A A A/, V. V. A#. AT. AA A/,

Tv "A* Tv ’7V 'TV '7V '/V '7V -TV ‘TV

**********

**********

* * *

But this is not the worst. Besides the fact that the
upper and middle classes take nearly two-thirds of the
wealth which the masses earn, there is the fact that those
classes, and probably less than a tenth of those classes,
actually own all the land and all the instruments by
which wealth can be produced.

Political orators and newspaper editors are very fond
of talking to you about “ your country.” Now, Mr.
Smith, it is a hard practical fact that you have not got any
country. The British Islands do not belong to the British
people; they belong to a few thousands — certainly not
half a million — of rich men.

These men not only own the land, they own, also, the
rivers and lakes, the mines and minerals, the farms and
orchards, the trees and thickets ; the cattle and horses,
and sheep and pigs, and poultry and game ; the mills,
factories, churches, houses, shops, railways, trains, ships,
machinery, and, in fact, nearly everything except the
bodies and souls of the workers, and, as I will try to show
you, they have almost complete power over these.

Yes, not only do the rich own the land, and all the
buildings and machinery, but also, and because they own
those things, they have reduced the workers to a condi¬
tion of dependence.

For you know very well that it is true of nearly all of
our working men that they cannot work when they choose

54

ME R RLE ENGLAND.

to work, but m-ust first find a rich man — a capitalist —
who is willing to employ them.

This is because the capitalists own the land and the
tools. What can the ploughman do without the land and
the plough; or the collier without the pit and the
machinery ; or the weaver without the loom and fac¬
tory ?

You know that in these days of machinery there are
hardly any men who own the tools of their own trade.
And if they did they would be helpless ; for they must
sell their work in a market where the capitalist competes
with them, and where he will undersell them, even if
he loses by the sale, and so make it impossible for them
to live.

Rent, interest, private ownership, machinery and com¬
petition are all instruments in the hands of the capitalist,
and with those instruments he compels the worker to
give up nearly all his earnings in return for permission
to work.

You are an agricultural laborer. I own a piece of land.
You come to me and beg for “work.” I “engage” you
at $5 a week, and all you produce is mine. You are a
slave, for if you quit my employ you must starve; and
although I have' no whip or chain, T have that which
serves as well to compel you to wrork hard, that is to say,
I have power to turn you off the land. So if you are a
cotton operative, and I own a cotton mill. You must
come to me and ask for work. If I refuse it you must
starve. If I offer it you must take it at my price. Oh,
yes, you can form a trade union, and strike, refusing to
accept my price. In that case I may give you rather
more than I offered, because it will pay me better to let
you have half the money you earn and be content myself
>yith the other half than to let you remain idle and so

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

55

make nothing by you at all. But you know I can always
beat you, for I have enough to live upon in idleness, and
you have nothing.

Well, it is true that the land and all the mines, mills,
houses, and machinery — that is to say, the “ Land ” and
“ Capital ” — of this country are owned by a few rich
people. And it is urged in defence of this private owner¬
ship of the “ means of livelihood ” that, in the first place,
the rich have a “ right” to their possessions ; and in the
second place that the rich use these possessions to the
general advantage.

Both these statements are untrue.

First, as to the rich man’s “ right ” to his wealth. I
suppose that you, as a sensible and honest man will admit
this principle : viz., that a man has a “ right ” to that
which he has produced by the unaided exercise of his
own faculties ; but that he has not a right to that which
is not produced by his own unaided faculties ; nor to the
whole of that which has been produced by his faculties
aided by the faculties of another man.

If you admit the above principle, then I think I can
prove to you that no man has a right to the private
ownership of a single square foot of land ; and that no
man could of his own efforts produce more private prop¬
erty than is commonly possessed by a monkey or a bear.

We will begin with the land; and you will find that
the original title to all the land possessed by private
owners is the title conquest or theft.

There are four chief ways in which land may become
private property. It may be confiscated by force ; it may
be filched by fraud ; it may be received as a gift ; or it
may be bought with money.

Of the land held by our rich peers the greater part has
been plundered from the church, stolen from the common-

56

MERRIE ENGLAND.

lands, or received in gifts from the Crown. If you will
buy a little book called “ Our Old Nobility,” you will
begin to have an idea of the ways in which our “ noble”
families got possession of their estates. From that book
I quote the following lines : —

The Fitzroys are certainly descended from one of the vilest of women :
Barbara Palmer, wife of Lord Castlemaine, and mistress of Charles
II. . . . One of Charles’ Ministers was Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington,
whose only daughter was married at the mature age of twelve to young
Fitzroy, the son of Barbara Palmer and Charles II. Ample provision was
made for the young couple. In 1673 Charles granted to the Earl of Arling¬
ton for life, and to Fitzroy and his wife afterwards, a very extensive tract
of Crown land, viz., the lordship and manor of Grafton, manor of Hart¬
well, and lands in Hartwell, Roade, and Hanslope, manors of Alderton,
Blissworth, Stoke Bruerne, Green’s Norton, Pottersbury, Ashton, Paulers-
bury, part of Charcomb Priory, lands in Grimscott, Houghton Parva,
Northampton, Hardingston, and Shuttlehanger, parcel of Sewardsley
Priory, the office and fee of the honor of Grafton, and the forests of Salcey
and Whittlebury (reserving the timber to the Crown). This extraordinary
grant will account for the large estates of the Fitzroys in Northampton¬
shire and Bucks. The Fitzroys inherit their Suffolk estates from the Earl
of Arlington. This patriotic statesman, who formed one of the notorious
Cabal Ministry, not content with taking bribes from the King of France,
and with the lucrative posts of Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy
Purse, and Postmaster-General, managed to secure for himself a number
of valuable grants, as is shown by the State Papers in the Record Office,
among which were a moiety of the estates of a former Earl of Lenox, and
several manors in the county of Wicklow. He also obtained a lease of
Marylebone Park on advantageous terms, and another lease of three-
fourths of Great St. John’s Wood at an annual rental of £21. 6s. 2d. No
wonder that he was able to purchase Euston Hall and the surrounding
lands. One of his Suffolk lordships was formerly part of the possessions
of St. Edmund’s Abbey, though whether acquired by grant or purchase is
not clear. Charles II. was not content with giving away Crown lands in
the wholesale manner above described ; the children of his harlots were
further provided for at the public expense. The Duke of Grafton, for
instance, had an hereditary pension of £9,000 a year granted from the
Excise, and £4,700 a year from the Post Office, which continued to be
paid till a comparatively recent date. The former pension was redeemed
in 1858 by a payment of £193,777, and the latter in 1856 by a payment of
£91,181. There was also a very lucrative sinecure in the family, which

MERRIE ENGLAND. 57

the Duke of Grafton surrendered in 1795 for an annuity of £870 a year—
an arrangement ratified by the Act 46 Geo. III., Cap. 89.

I want you to read that book, and also Henry George’s
“ Progress and Poverty ” and “ Social Problems.”

But leaving the men who have stolen the land, or got
it by force, or fraud, let us consider the title of those who
have bought the land.

Many people have bought land, and paid for it. Have
they a right to it ?

No. They have no right to that land, and for these two
reasons.

1. They bought it of some one who had no right
to sell it.

2. They paid for it with money which they
themselves had never earned.

Land, you will observe, is the gift of Nature. It is not
made by man. Now, if a man has a right to nothing but
that which he has himself made, no man can have a right
to the land, for no man made it.

It would be iust as reasonable for a few families to
claim possession of the sea and the air, and charge their
fellow creatures rent for breathing or bathing, as it is for
those few families to grab the land and call it theirs. As
a matter of fact we are charged for breathing, for without
a sufficient space of land to breathe on we cannot get
good air to breathe.

If a man claimed the sea, or the air, or the light as his,
you would laugh at his presumption. Now, I ask you to
point out to me any reason for private ownership of land
which will not act as well as a reason for private owner¬
ship of sea and air.

So we may agree that no man can have any right to the
land. And if a man can have no right to the land, how
can he have a right to sell the land ? And if I buy a piece

58

MERRIE ENGLAND.

of land from one who has no right to sell it, how can I
call that land mine ?

Take a case. William the Conqueror stole an estate
from Harold (to whom it did not belong) and gave it to a
Norman Baron. During the Wars of the Roses said Baron
lost it to another Baron, or to the Crown. Later on the
estate is confiscated by Charles II. and given to a bastard
son of his. The descendants of that bastard son take to
gambling and lose the estate to the Jews. The Jews sell
it to a wealthy cotton-lord.

But the land is stolen property, and the cotton-lord is
a receiver of stolen property.

Suppose a footpad knocked down a traveller and stole
his watch. Gave the watch to his sweetheart, who sold
it to a Jew, who sold it again to a sailor, and suppose the
traveller came forward and claimed his watch. Would
the law let the sailor keep it ? No. But if the footpad
had been made a peer for stealing it that would have made
a difference.

You may say, of course, that the law of the land has
confirmed the old nobility in the possession of their stolen
property. That is quite true. But it is equally true that
the law was made by the landowners themselves. In
the eighteenth century the big landowners robbed the
small landowners in a shameful and wholesale way.
Within a space of about eighty years no less than 7,000,000
acres were “ enclosed.”

And when we suggest that the land of England should
be restored to the English people from whom it was
stolen, these land-robbers have the impudence to raise the
cry of “ plunder.”

Here, for instance, is an extract from an evening paper,
cut out by me some years ago : —

MERRIE ENGLAND.

59

The impudent agitators who suggest the confiscation of the land, are
dumb as to the rights and services of the landowner. They ignore the
facts that the land is his, and that if he administers the estate he chiefly
creates its value.

The land is not “ his.” Man has a right only to what
his labor makes. No man “ makes ” the land.

The nobleman does not — in most cases — administer his
estate. The estate is managed by farmers, who pay the
nobleman a heavy rent for being allowed to do his work.

Therefore the landlord does not “ create the value ” of
the estate. The value of an estate consists in the industry
of those who work upon it. To say that Lord Blankdash
has farm lands or town property worth 1250,000 a year
means that he has the legal power to take that money
from the factory hands and farm- workers for the use of
that which is as much theirs as his.

I suppose you are aware that no “ value ” can be got
out of an estate without labor. If you doubt this, take a
nine- acre field, fence it in, and wait until -it grows crops.
You know it will never grow crops, unless some one
ploughs it and sows it.

No : even if you have land and capital you cannot raise
a single ear of corn without labor. Take your nine-acre
field. Put in a steam plough, a sack of seed, a harrow,
and a bank-book, and wait for crops. You will not get a
stalk of corn. A poor laborer with a broken shovel and
a piece of thorn bush will raise more wheat in his little
patch of back garden than all the capital of England could
get out of all the acres of Europe without labor.

But read the following report of a land company, taken
from the Pall Mall Gazette in 1891 : —

Swaziland Gold Exploeation and Land Company.

The annual general meeting of this company was held this afternoon a
Winchester House. Mr. E. A. Pontifex, the chairman, presided, and

60

ME RE IE ENGLAND.

moved the adoption of the report, He said that since the last meeting
practically nothing had been done. They had been waiting for more
'prosperous times. They were an exploring and land, not a mining company,
with a view to inducing others to form subsidiary companies for working
the property. At the present moment the formation of companies was
practically a dead letter ; and it would be useless to point out to promoters
where operations could be carried on, as they would be unable to raise the
necessary funds to carry on the works. They had reduced the expenses to
the lowest possible limit, the directors having foregone their fees, and the
total amount being only £400 a year. They were awaiting better times ,
and the advent of railways, before endeavoring to work the riches they
believed were contained in the 156 square miles of territory which they
possessed. Since their last meeting, the High Court of Swaziland, sitting
at Kremersdorp, had confirmed the concession originally made by the late
King Umbandine, and it was held to by the King’s successors and the
Boer Republic and the English Government, which now prevails in Swazi¬
land. Nor was it likely that any further call would be made until the
arrival of more enterprising times.

The italics are mine. The company owns 156 square
miles of land; and it does not pay them a cent! Why ?
Because there is no labor on it. The company are wait¬
ing for railways. Why ? Because railways will carry
people out there. Mines, farms, towns, will come into
existence. The pick and the plough will go to work, and
then — then the Swaziland square miles will be valuable.
In other words, the men who make the wealth in Swazi¬
land will have to pay a lot of it to the English company
as rent for the land the company have “ acquired.”

The case above given is clear enough for the capacity
of a child. There is the whole problem made plain.
Labor and capital: Labor and land. One hundred and
fifty-six square miles of land, and not a shilling return.
Not so much as comes back from the land on which is
built an Ancoats slum cottage. But a man lives in the
cottage ; and he works, and a part of his earnings goes
unto the “owner” of the land. Do you see it novi , Mr.
Smith ?

ME TUI IE ENGLAND.

61

Have you ever considered the question of house rent ?
Suppose you own a cottage in a country village, and I
own a cottage of the same size in a busy town, close to a big
railway and a number of factories. You know that I
shall get more rent for my house than you will get for
yours. Why ?

Because my house stands on more desirable land. The
railway company would buy it. And then it is near to
places of work, and workmen will pay more for it, especially
as houses are scarce.

But did I make the railway ? Did I build the factories ?
Did I do anything to make the wealth of the town, or the
“ value ” of the land. Not I. The workers did that, and
so I am paid for what they did. That is to say, I am
allowed, by raising my rent, to put a tax upon their
industry.

The poor wretches in the East End of London pay from
3s. to 6s. a week for one small room in a weather-worn
and dirty house, in a narrow and unhealthy street ; and
rents in Manchester are high. This is owing to the value
of the land. That is to say, the people are forced by
stress of circumstances not only to live in the rotten nests
of these pestilential rookeries, but have no option but to
give the extortionate prices demanded by landlords whose
bowels of compassion are dried up, and whose souls are
shrunken by the fires of avarice.

Land is “ valuable ” — that is, tenants will submit to be
cheated — in all centres of industry. The skill, the energy,
and the orderliness of the workers create an “ industrial
centre.” Speculators buy land near that centre, and as
business and work draw people thereto in search of a
living, the “speculator” raises his prices and grows rich,
and his land and houses are “ valuable.” This is accord¬
ing to the law. It constitutes a dishonest and an unreason-

62

MERRIE ENGLAND.

able tax on labor, but it is lawful. There is in it neither
principle nor humanity — but it is the law ; and the
difficulty of improving the dwellings of the people lies in
the fact that you cannot alter this law without damaging
the sacred rights of property.

Do you ever think about these things ? Do you know
the difference between the land law and the patent laws
and copyright?

A nobleman owns an estate. He draws $150,000 in
rent from it annually, lie and his family before him
have drawn that rent for five or six centuries, and the
land is still his.

But if John Smith of Oldham invents a new loom and
patents it, his patent right expires in fourteen years. For
fourteen years he may reap the fruits of his cleverness.
At the end of that time any one may work his patent
without charge. It has become public property. This is
the law.

Or John Smith of Oldham writes a book. The book is
copyright for forty years, or for the life of the author and
seven years after. Whilst it is copyright no one can
print the book without John’s leave and so John may
make money by his cleverness. But at the end of that
time the copyright lapses and the book becomes public
property. Any one may print it then.

Now you see the difference between land law and patent
law. The landlord’s patent never runs out. The land
never becomes public property. The rent is perpetual.
And yet the landlord did not make the land, whereas
John Smith did invent the loom.

Mr. Smith, if you are a practical, hard-headed man, I
think I may leave you to study the land question for
yourself.

MEIlIlIE ENGLAND.

63

CHAPTER VII.

RENT AND INTEREST.

The Lord will enter into judgmont with the elders of His people. It is
ye that have eaten up the vineyard : the spoil of the poor is in your
houses ; what mean ye that ye crush My people, and grind the faces of
the poor ? saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts. — Isaiah.

Morality and political economy unite in repelling the individual who
consumes without producing. — De Balzac,.

The guilty Thieves of Europe, the real sources of all deadly war in it,
are the Capitalists — that is to say people who live by percentages or the

labor of others ; instead of by fair wages for their own . All

social evils and religious errors arise out of the pillage of the laborer by
the idler ; the idler leaving him only enough to live on (and even that
miserably), and taking all the rest of the produce of his work to spend
in his own luxury, or in the toys with which he beguiles his idleness. —
Buskin.

The requisites of production are two : Labor, and appropriate natural
objects. — J. S. Mill.

The produce of labor constitutes natural recompense, or wages of
labor. — Adam Smith.

We have now to consider a very important question,
viz., have the rich any right to their riches ?

I have already laid it down as my guiding principle
that a man has a right to all the wealtli that he creates
by the exercise of his own unaided faculties ; and to no
more.

If you look into my pamphlet, “ The Pope’s Socialism,”
page 4, you will find the following paragraph : —

No man has any right to he rich. No man ever yet became rich by fair
means. No man ever became rich by his own industry.

That statement, “ no man ever became rich by his own

G4

MERRIE ENGLAND.

industry,” has puzzled many of my readers, and I shall
explain it.

I shall explain it because, if no man can become rich by
his own industry, then no man has a right to be rich at
all.

How do men grow rich ? In these days the three chief
sources of wealth are :

1. Rent.

2. Interest.

3. Profits.

First, Rent. Who earns it? We will take two ex¬
amples : Ground Rent, and Property Rent.

The Duke of Plaza Toro owns an estate. The rent roll
is $150,000 a year. Where does the money come from ?

The estate is let out to farmers, at so much per acre.
These farmers pay the duke his $150,000 a year. Where
do the farmers get it from ?

The farmers sell their crops, and out of the purchase
money pay the rent. How are the crops raised ?

The crops are raised by the agricultural laborers, under
the direction of the farmers.

That is to say, that the rent is earned by labor — by
the labor of the farmer and his men. The duke does
nothing. The duke did not make the land, nor does he
raise the crops. He has therefore no right to take the
rent at all.

The man who gets rich on ground rent gets rich on the
labor of others.

Mr. Bounderby owns a row of houses. The rental of
the street amounts to $2,000 a year. Where does the
money come from ?

The rent is paid by the tenants of the houses. It is
paid with money they have earned by their labor, or with
money which they have obtained from other men who

MERRIE ENGLAND.

65

earned it by their labor, and it is paid to Mr. Bounderby
for the use of his houses.

How did Mr. Bounderby get his houses? He either
bought them with money which he did not earn by his
own industry, or he paid for the material and the building
with money which he did not earn by his own indus¬
try.

Two things are quite certain. First, that Mr. Bound¬
erby did not build the houses with his own hands, nor
make the bricks and timbers of which they are built ;
that work was done by other men. And second, that the
money with which those men were paid was never earned
by Mr. Bounderby’s own industry.

Mr. Bounderby lias therefore no right to own those
houses or to charge rent for them.

The man who grows rich upon house rents grows rich
upon the labor of others.

But you will very properly ask, Mr. Smith, how I prove
that the money paid by Mr. Bounderby for his houses
was not earned by his own industry.

This brings us to the second and third means by which
men get wealth : Interest and profits.

What is interest ? It is money paid for the use of
money. If you lent me $500 at 5 percent, interest, that
would mean that I must pay you five pounds a year for
the loan of the money as long as I kept it, and that such
payment would not reduce the amount of the loan. So
that if I kept your $500 for twenty years and paid you
$25 year interest, I should at the end of that time still
owe you $500. That is to say you would receive $1,000
from me, although you only lent me $500.

Where do I get the interest from ? I have to work for
it. But you get it from me. You don’t work for it.
You — possibly — worked for the principal, that is, for the
5

MERRIE ENGLAND.

66

first hundred pounds ; but you do not work for the in¬
terest, the second hundred pounds.

Suppose I have $5,000 I put it in a bank and draw 3 per
cent., $150 a year, interest for it. At the end of twenty
years I shall have drawn out $3,000, and yet there will be
$5,000 to my credit. How does my money breed money ?
How do I get $3,000 for $5,000 ? How can the banker
afford to pay me more than I put into the bank ?

If instead of putting my $5,000 into a bank I locked it
up in a safe, and drew out $150 a year for twenty years,
would there be $5,000 at the end of that time ? There
would not. There would only be $2000. Money does not
breed money. Interest has to be worked for. Who earns

Suppose a rich Jew has lent million to the Govern¬
ment at 3 per cent. He draws every year $150,000 in
interest. Who pays it? It is raised by taxation. Who
pays the taxes ? They are all paid either by the workers
or by those who get their money from the workers. And
the Jew gets his interest forever. That is to say that
after he has drawn back all his million in interest the
Government goes on paying him out of your earnings, my
hard-headed friend, $150,000 a year as long as any one is
left to claim it. Probably the million was wasted in some
foolish work, or wicked war ; but because a Minister in
1812 was a knave or a fool, British industry is taxed to the
tune of $150,000 a year, world without end, amen.

And the worst of it is that the money the Jew lent was
not earned by him, but by the ancestors of the very people
who are now paying his descendants interest for the loan
of it.

Nay : Worse even than this. It is a fact that a great
deal of the so-called “ capital ” for which interest is paid
does not exist at all .

ME HR IE ENGLAND.

67

The Duke of Plaza Toro is a wealthy peer. He has an
income, a rent-roll of $150,000 a year. The Earl of Chow
Bent has $200,000 a year, the Marquis of Steyne has
$250,000 a year. These noblemen, together with a rich
Jew, a couple of rich cotton-lords, and acoalowner, decide
to form a company and construct a canal.

They engage some engineers and some navvies. To pay
these men their wages and to provide tools and other
plant, they need “ capital.”

They get an estimate of the cost. Say it is half a
million. The capital of the company is half a million.
But that is needed to complete the work. It can be
started with much less. They therefore issue 50,000
shares at $50, each ; $10 payable on allotment, and the
rest at stated times.

The company consists of ten men. Each takes an
equal number of shares, each pays down an equal sum,
say $50,000, making a total of $500,000. With this amount
they can go on until the second call is made.

Now look at the position of the Duke. He has paid in
his $50,000, and at the end of a year he will have another
£150,000 ready, in the shape of rent. The others are in
similar positions. The Jew waits for his interest , the coal-
owner and the cotton-lords for their profits. And all
these sums, the rent, the interest, and the profits, are
earned by the workers,

So the canal is made. Who makes it ? Not the rich
share-owners. Oh, no. The canal is made by the engi¬
neers and the navvies. And who finds the money ? Not
the rich shareholders. Oh, no. The money is earned in
rent, or interest, or profits, by the agricultural laborers,
the colliers, and the cotton operatives.

But when the navvies and engineers have made the

68

MERIIIE ENGLAND.

canal, and when the laborers, miners, and spinners have
paid for it, who owns it ?

Does it belong to the men who made it? Not at all.
Does it belong to the men who earned the money to pay
for it ? Not at all.

It belongs to the rich shareholders, and these men will
get other men to work it, and will keep the profits of its
working.

That is to say, all the goods which are carried on that
canal must pay tollage. This tollage, after the costs of
repairing and working the canal are defrayed, will be
profit, and will be divided amongst the shareholders in
the form of dividends. Who will pay the tollage?

The tollage will be paid by the people who carry the
goods, and they in turn will charge it to the people who
buy the goods, and they in turn will charge it to the peo¬
ple who use the goods. And the people who use the
goods will be either workers, who pay the toll out of their
own earnings, or rich people, who pay the toll out of the
earnings of other workers.

And now let us sum up.

The Duke of Plaza Toro lends $ 50,000, which he has got
(out of his farm laborers) and $275,000 which he has not

t

got, but which he will get as soon as his farm laborers
have earned it. With this money — the money earned and
to be earned by the farm laborers — the Duke pays wages
to the engineers and navvies who make the canal.

The canal being made, the Duke takes tollage, wdiich
is paid by the workers, much of it, perhaps, by the farm
laborers, navvies, engineers, spinners, and colliers, who
found the money for the canal or did the work of making
it.

That is to say, the workers pay the Duke interest for
the loan of their own money.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

69

You will begin now to see what is meant by such words
as Rent, Interest, Capital, and Credit. For your further
enlightenment, and to give you an idea how poor these
. rich men really are, and how very much interest is paid
for money which does not exist, let me offer you two
facts.

The first fact is that whereas the amount annually paid
in wages, profits, interest, and rent is estimated at 86,000,-
000,000, there is at no time as much as 8500,000,000 of
money in the country.

The second fact I will give you in the words of John
Stuart Mill : —

When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riches inherited
from ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea suggested is that the
riches so transmitted were produced long ago, at the time when they are
said to have been first acquired, and that no portion of the capital of a
country was produced this year, except so much as may have been this
year added to the total amount. The fact is far otherwise.

The greater part, in value, of the wealth now existing in England has
been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A
very small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in exist¬
ence ten years ago; of the present productive capital of the country
scarcely any part, except farm-houses and factories, and a few ships and
machines ; and even these would not in most cases have survived so long
if fresh labor had not been employed within that period in putting them
into repair.

The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that subsists.
Everything which is produced perishes, and most things very quickly.

And again : —

Capital is kept in existence from age to age, not by preservation, but by
perpetual reproduction.

Does that surprise you ? Yearly all the boasted “ capi¬
tal,” or wealth of the rich is produced annually.

And by whom is it produced? By the rich? Yot at
all. It is produced by those who labor, for all wealth

70

MEUBIE ENGLAND.

must be produced by labor. By no other means can it be
produced.

You hear a man described as a millionaire. Do you
suppose that he has a million or a hundred million pounds
in his safe? Do you imagine with regard to a Jay Gould
or a Duke of Westminster that every year a million golden
coins rain down on him from heaven ?

Your millionaire has hardly anything. Very little
money that is certain. But he has bonds and securities
and other written contrivances of the usurer and the devil,
whereby he is legally entitled to appropriate year by year
some millions of the wealth that is created by the labor
of the poor.

Your Duke of Plaza Toro is said to be worth $2,500,000
a year. How is he worth it ? lie gets it in rent, in royal¬
ties, in dividends, in interest ; and every penny of it is
taken from the wealth produced by labor.

Your Duke has $150,000 a year of rent-roll, has he ? But
he has not a shilling of rent until poor Hodge has raised
the crops and farmer Giles has sold them. Take the men,
the laborers — poor despised drudges — off his Grace’s
estates, and his Grace is a pauper.

I advise you to get a pamphlet called “ Society Classi¬
fied : In reply to the question, ‘ How far is the saying true
that every one lives either by working or begging, or by
stealing?’ ” It is well worth your attention. The author
is E. D. Girdlestone.

MEREIE ENGLAND.

71

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SELF-MADE MAN.

The difference of natural talent in different men is, in reality, much less
than Ave are aware of ; and the very different genius which appears to
distinguish men of different professions, when grown up to maturity, is uot,
upon many occasions, so much the cause as the effect of the division of
labor. The difference between the most dissimilar characters — between a
philosopher and a common street porter, for example — seems to arise not
so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education. When they
came into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their existence,
they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their parents nor playfel¬
lows could perceive any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon
after, they came to be employed in very different occupations. The differ¬
ence of talents comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees,
till at last the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarcely
any resemblance. — Adam Smith.

Lycurgus fixed but a small value on a considerable quantity of his iron
money, but on the contrary the worth of speech was to consist in a few
plain words pregnant with a good deal of sense, and he contrived that by
long silence they might learn to be sententious and acute in their replies.
Upon the whole he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable
than to live for or by themselves. Like bees the people acted with one
impulse for the public good, and always assembled about their prince.
They were possessed with a thirst of honor, an enthusiasm bordering upon
insanity, and had not a wish but for their country. — Plutarch.

The next thing we have to discover is, What is profit?
Profit is the excess price received for an article over the
price paid for it.

If a man sells a thing for more money than he buys it
for the balance is profit.

You will see, then, that men may make profit either
upon their own work or upon the work of others.

72

M EERIE ENGLAND.

As a rule profit is not made by the produce of an article,
but by some other person commonly called “ the middle¬
man ” because he goes between the producer and the con¬
sumer ; that is to say he, the middleman, buys the article
from the maker, and sells it to the user, at a profit.

In some cases, and to some extent, this profit is fair.
For example, a costermonger buys fish in the market,
carries it into the city and sells it at a profit. That profit
is his wage, and pays him for his work as a distributor or
carrier of goods from the producer to the user.

But when the middleman becomes a capitalist ; when he
buys fish on the beach by the ton and sells it at a profit
to the shopkeeper and the coster, making for himself a
couple of thousand a year, while the fisherman and the
coster can hardly keep body and soul together, that is not
a fair profit at all.

Why ? Just look at it in this light. Here are four
persons concerned in the fishery trade.

1. The fisherman, or getter.

2. The middleman, or dealer.

3. The coster, or carrier.

4. The consumer, or user.

Now, can you see any reason why of these four people
the middleman, who does nothing but sign checks, should
fare so much better than any of the others ?

We have three persons engaged in getting the fish from
the sea to our doors. Is it fair that he who does the least
work should have the most money ? Is the work done by,
or rather done /or, the middleman so much more valuable
to the public than the work of the fisherman and the
coster ?

My dear John, the middleman’s work, so far from being
the most valuable of the three, is actually worse than
useless.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

73

The middleman in fact does nothing but keep up the
price of fish and keep down the rate of wages by his ex¬
orbitant profits.

Put the case to yourself thus. Suppose you were con¬
tractor, or caterer, for the supply of food to an entire
town. Would you pay a man 110,000 a year for simply
ordering other men to send telegrams to local agents to
buy fish on the beach? I don’t think you would. Being
a hard-headed person, you would pay a clerk the current
rate of wages to do all that, and so would save at least
$9,000 a year. You would see then, in a moment, that
the middleman was a mere snatcher of profits, taking
from the producer with one hand and from the consumer
with the other.

All employers of labor, all rich men, except the money¬
lenders and the landlords, are middlemen.

They are all useless incumbrances, getting rich upon
the labor of others.

There are three chief kinds of middlemen : —

1. The idle capitalist, who pays men to work for
him, and pays managers to direct them, but never
works himself.

2. The busy capitalist who pays men to work
for him, and himself directs and manages the sale
of what they make.

3. The capitalistic worker, or inventor, who has
invented some new process or machine, and who
employs other men to make or work the patent.

The first of these men is worse than useless. The second
is, or might be, useful, but is almost always very much
overpaid. The third is sometimes an evil, sometimes a
good, ought always to be valuable to any nation, and is
the only kind of capitalist with any pretence of a right to
his riches. His case we must consider very carefully.

74

MER1UE ENGLAND.

When I said in “ The Pope’s Socialism ” that no man
ever became rich by his own industry, the inventor was
instanced against me by some of my readers.

They could not see that a man who made a fortune out
of an invention did not grow rich by his own industry.

Yet the fact is very clear.

We will suppose that you, John Smith, invent a new
kind of loom, which will do twice as much work as any
other kind of loom now known.

You patent that loom, and for twenty-one years exact a
royalty upon every such loom that is made. Thus you
grow rich.

Do you grow rich by your own industry ? By your
own unaided industry ?

Is all the machine your own invention ? Does no other
man’s hand help you in the getting of your riches ?

If you consider you will find that you owe your in¬
vention to a legion of dead and nameless men; and
your wealth to a legion of poor workers of your own
time.

First. Your loom contains wheels, and shafts, and
pinions, and is worked by steam. Did you invent the
wheel? Did you discover steam ? No. They were there
ready to your hand, invented, like the hammer and the
file you used, and the principles of mechanics by which
you worked, by men long dead ; by men without whose
labors your wonderful invention had never been.

But, again, of what is your loom made ? Of iron, of
copper, of steel; of timber and many other materials.
But you are not a miner, nor a puddler, nor a joiner, nor
a smith or moulder.

So that to invent your machine you borrow from the
dead ; and to make it you must get the help of the
living.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

75

And when it is made. Will it fetch a fortune ? Not at
all. To make a fortune out of your machine you must
make others, or get them made.

You cannot make them. If you did you would not grow
rich, for it would take you years and years to make but a
few.

Therefore you get other men to make them, other men
to sell them, other men to work them, and get others to
buy the cloth they weave, and you take the profit.

Do you call that getting rich by your own unaided
industry ? I don’t. I call it taking a selfish advantage
of your own good fortune and the necessity of your fellow
creatures.

You will understand that I do not blame you. In a
time of competition it behooves every man to look after
himself. If I invented a machine I should take the royalty
on the patent, and use it as best I might.

But it would be far better for me, and for the world, if
I was not compelled to take it ; but might give my talents
freely to mankind without danger of being branded as a
pauper, or left to die in a ditch as a reward.

You will often hear it said that Socialists are dishonest
men, who wish to take the wealth of others and enjoy it
themselves. John, that is a lie. It is a wilful, wicked
lie, deliberately uttered by robbers who wish to hold fast
to the spoil they have taken from the poor.

Socialism is terribly just, implacably honest. It is so
honest that I doubt whether you can so much as look at
the light of its honesty without blinking ; although you are
a fairly honest man, John Smith, as times go. But let
me give you an idea of what I consider the very root prin¬
ciple of all Socialism, and of all Democracy.

This is the principle that there is no such thing as per¬
sonal independence in human affairs. Man is a unit of

76

MERRIE ENGLAND.

society, and owes not only all that he possesses, but all
that he is, to other men.

Yes. Just as no man can have a right to the land, be¬
cause no man makes the land, so no man has a right to
his self, because he did not make that self.

Men are made what they are by two forces, heredity
and environment. That is to say, by “ breed ” and the
conditions of life.

Take a new-born babe — a Shakespeare or a Stevenson
— and put it down upon an uninhabited island and it will
perish of hunger.

Set a savage to suckle it, and it will grow up a savage.

Your intellect and character are at birth what your
forefathers made them. And the intellects and charac¬
ters of your forefathers were what their forefathers and
their own surroundings made them.

After birth, you become just what your circumstances
and the people around you acting upon your peculiar
character and intellect, may make you.

Born amongst sots and thieves, and reared amongst
them, you will almost certainly become a sot and a thief.

Born and reared amongst Thugs you would have learned
and grown to delight in murder.

Whatsoever you are, you are what your forefathers,
your circumstances, and your companions have made you.
You did not make yourself ; therefore you have no right
to yourself. You were made by other men ; therefore to
those other men you are indebted for all you have and
for all you are, and Socialism, with its awful justice, tells
you that you must pay the debt.

Allow me to illustrate this position by using myself as
an example. I am a writer. I write a story, and I sell
it to the public. Suppose I can, by the sale of many
copies, secure a large sum of money. Am I justified in

MERRIE ENGLAND.

77

calling that money mine ; in asserting, as so many men
do assert, that I have earned the money by my own in¬
dustry and talent, and that therefore it belongs to me
alone, by right? I don’t know what you think, John
Smith, but I know that I have not done that work without
help, and that in justice I must pay back to all men what
they have lent me.

What have they lent me ? They have lent me all that
I have and all that I am.

Who taught me to read, and to write ? Who suckled
me, nursed me, clothed me, fed me, cured me of my fevers
and other ailings ?

Where did I get my ideas, my thoughts, my power, such
as it is, of literary arrangement, form and style?

I tell you frankly that I don’t know. What do I owe
to Solomon, to Shakespeare, to Rabelais, to Carlyle, to
Dickens ; to a hundred other writers ? What do I owe
to personal friends ; to schoolmasters, to the people I have
rubbed shoulders and touched hands with all these years ?
What do I owe to the workshop, to the army, to the peo¬
ple of the inns, the churches, the newspaper offices, the
markets, and the slums ? I don’t know. I can only tell
you that these people have made me what I am and have
taught me all I know.

Kay, could I even write a story after all my learning
and being and suffering if I had not fellow creatures to
write about ? Could I have written “ The Ramchunders ”
if I had not served with soldiers, or “ My Sister,” if there
had been no unfortunate, desperate women in our
streets ?

All I know, all that even a great writer knows of art or
human nature has been learned from other men. Now I
tell you, Practical John, that I am in the debt of my in¬
structors. Indeed you would see clearly enough that if

78

ME ERIE ENGLAND.

Mr. Luke Fildes, the artist, engaged a man to sit as model
for his “ Casuals ” he ought to pay that man his wages.
And why should not Charles Dickens pay the models for
his article on Tramps ?

I owe a debt, then, to the living and the dead. You may
say that I cannot pay the dead. But suppose the dead
have left heirs ! Likely enough they have left heirs.
And Socialism, with its awful justice, tells me that the
claims of those heirs are binding on me.

Or there may be a will. Let us instance a case of this.
To none, in my peculiar mental make up, am I more in¬
debted than to Jesus Christ. Well, he left a will. His
will expressly bids me treat all men as brothers. And to
the extent of my indebtedness to Christ am I bound to
pay all men, his heirs. And even after all these debts
are considered, I, the author of a poor little tale, am still
in the same position as the inventor of the loom, for I can¬
not so much as get a copy printed without the aid of
myriads of living workmen and of dead inventors.

The pen I write with, the paper I write upon, the types,
the press, the engine, the trains, the printer, the carrier,
the shopmen, even the poor little bare-footed newsboy in
the streets, are all necessary to my “greatness,” to my
“ fame,” to my “ wealth.” And, after all, suppose no one
would buy my book or read it ! Who does buy it ? Who
reads it ? Men and women I never saw. And who taught
them to read ? For to those teachers also I owe something.

Now, after all that, don’t you think I should be a most
ungrateful and conceited prig if I had the impudence to
hold up my face and say “ alone I did it ?”

Here is a drawing. It represents a tree by a river.
An apple has fallen from the tree and a monkey wishes
to get the apple.

But he cannot reach it. Another monkey tries, but

MERRIE ENGLAND.

79

cannot reach it. Then a third monkey comes and plucks
the apple out of the water.

Now, if that third monkey who reached the water over
the bodies, and by the aid of the other two, were to claim
the whole of the apple as his? would you call that fair ?

It is just as unfair as it is for an author or an inventor
to claim fame and fortune as the just reward of “ his own
industry and talent.” Think of these things. They may
not strike you as “practical,” but they are true.

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MERE1E ENGLAND.

CHAPTER IX.

INDUSTRIAL COMPETITION.

Competition gluts our markets, enables the rich to take advantage o!
the necessities of the poor, makes each man snatch the bread out of his
neighbor’s mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile,
isolated, units, and finally involves capitalists and laborers in one com¬
mon ruin. — Greg.

Now, my friend, pull yourself together, and remember
that you are a practical, hard-headed man. I want to ask
you some questions.

Of a country where the idle men were rich, and the in¬
dustrious men poor, where men w~ere rewarded not for
usefulness or goodness, but for successful selfishness,
would you not say that its methods were unjust and that
its Government was bad ?

But of a country where the workers got more than the
idlers, and where useful and good men were honored and
rewarded, would you not say that it was a just and well-
governed people ?

You would. You would call that a false society where
the good and useful suffered while the bad and the useless
prospered. And you would call that a true society where
every man enjoyed the fruits of his own labor and where
the best men were at the head of affairs. Well, John, we
have seen that in this country the greatest share of the
wealth goes to those who do nothing to produce it ; that
industrious men are generally poor and rich men chiefly
idle, the best and the most useful men are not the best
paid nor the best rewarded, and that very often the great-

MERRIE ENGLAND.

81

est enemies of society reap the most benefit from society’s
labor.

In short, English society is not a just society, nor is
England a well-governed nation.

Now, what is the cause of this? How does it come to
pass that Industry and Self-sacrifice are often poor, and
that Idleness and Selfishness are often rich ? How comes
it that laziness and greed reap honor and wealth, whilst
poverty and contumely are the lot of diligence and zeal ?

By what means do the rich retain their riches ; and by
what means are the poor deprived of the wealth they
create ?

There are two causes of this injustice, John. The first
is “ prerogative,” and the second is “competition.”

The instrument by means of which our landed aristo¬
crats wrest their riches out of the hands of the workers is
“ prerogative,” or privilege. ♦

Noblemen have had their estates given to them by the
Crown — often for some base or cruel deed — and they keep
them by means of laws made by a parliament of landlords.
The English Parliament of to-day is a Parliament of privi¬
lege. It is not a democratic body. Abolish election fees,
pay your members, pass acts for granting universal suf¬
frage, second ballot, and one man one vote, and you will
have a Parliament elected upon democratic lines. At
present there are not a dozen workmen amongst the six
hundred and sixty members ; and then there is the House
of Lords.

So much for the great realm of Rent. Outside that we
come to the still greater realm of commerce. Here there
is not much prerogative, but there is a more deadly thing,
there is competition. Competition is the instrument by
which, in the commercial world, one man possesses him¬
self of the fruits of other men’s labor.

6

82

MERRIE ENGLAND.

In the world of commerce there are two chief classes.
The employers and the employed. Both these classes are
engaged in competition. One employer competes against
another, and one worker competes against another. The
result being that the workers always suffer.

Let us, then, examine these two kinds of competition ;
and let us examine them as they affect : —

1. The middleman, or employer.

2. The producer, or worker.

3. The consumer, or user.

The rule of trade throughout the entire commercial
world is that every seller shall obtain as much as he can
get for the thing he has to sell, and that every buyer shall
give as little as the seller will take for the thing he has
to buy.

Suppose I were cultivating a plot of land with a wooden
spade and that with an iron spade I could do as much
work in one hour as with a wooden spade I could do in
two hours. The value of an iron spade to me would be
the amount of labor saved until the spade was worn out.

Now if there were only one iron spade to be bought,
it would be worth my while to give for it almost the full
amount of the advantage I should gain by its use.

That is to say, if with the iron spade I could raise 20
bushels of wheat in the year, and if with the wooden spade
I could only raise 10 bushels of wheat in a year, and if
the iron spade would last two years, then I could give 18
bushels of wheat for an iron spade and still gain a bushel
a year. So the iron spade would be worth 18 bushels of
wheat to me.

But now suppose instead of one iron spade there were
a million of iron spades to sell. Would an iron spade be
worth less to me ? No. It would still do double the work
of the wooden spade, and I could only use one iron spade

M EERIE ENGLAND.

83

at once. To the buyer the abundance or scarcity of an
article makes no difference in its value. A thing bought
is worth what it will bring.

On the other hand, what is the value of the spade to
the man who makes it ? Its value is regulated by the
time spent upon making it. If in the time it takes the
man to make a spade he could have raised 20 bushels of
wheat, then the spade must be sold for 20 bushels of
wheat or he had better give up making spades and stick
to his land. But if, in the time it would take him to
raise 20 bushels of wheat he can make ten spades, then to
him each spade is only worth two bushels of wheat.
That is to say that to the seller the abundance of the
thing he has to sell does make a difference in its value.
A thing sold is worth what it has cost.

Now let us see in what relations this buyer and
seller of spades stand to each other as just men, and as
traders.

In justice, the day’s work of the farmer should be sold
for the day’s work of the smith. So if a smith can make
ten spades whilst a farmer is raising 20 bushels, then the
just price of spades is two bushels each.

As traders, it will pay me to give 18 bushels of wheat
for one iron spade, since that spade will bring me 20
bushels extra.

Therefore, if there is only one smith, and if he will not
sell a spade for less than 18 bushels, I shall certainly pay
that price.

Under these circumstances the smith will soon grow
rich.

But there is my side of the bargain as well as his. I
may refuse to pay that price, knowing that he can only
buy wheat from me.

In that case he must lower the price of his spades, or

84

MERRIE ENGLAND.

dig his own wheat. In the end we should probably come
to a fair arrangement.

But suppose there are two men growing wheat, and
only one making spades. Then the two farmers are in
competition and the smith may raise the price of his
spades.

Or, if there are two smiths and only one farmer, then
the price of spades will fall. Why ? Because it will pay
the smith better to take three bushels for his spades than
to grow wheat ; therefore each smith will drop his price,
so as to secure the order of the one farmer, down to the
point where making spades ceases to pay better than
growing wheat.

But, now suppose that not only are there two smiths,
and only one farmer, but that the one farmer owns the
whole of the land. Then the smiths are obliged to sell
spades or starve, and they will farther drop their prices
down to the lowest point at which they can manage to exist.

What does this mean ? It means that in the commer¬
cial world, where prices are ruled by competition, buyers
do not pay for an article the price it is worth to them,
but only the price which the seller is in a position to
demand.

Let us now consider the effect of competition amongst
the workers.

The worker has nothing to sell but his labor, and he
must sell that to the middleman. Now, suppose a mid¬
dleman wants a potato patch dug up ; and suppose there
are two men out of work. Will the middleman pay one
of the men a just price, and charge the labor to the con¬
sumer of the potatoes? No. He will ask the men what
they will do it for, and give the work to the man who
will do it at the lower price. Nor is that the end of the
mischief. Say one man gets the work at 75 cents a day.

M EERIE ENGLAND.

85

The other man is still unemployed. He, therefore, goes to
the middleman and offers to do the work for 50 cents a
day. Then the other man is thrown out of work and
must go in for 85 cents a day — or starve.

And so we see that competition amongst the workers
reduces the workers’ wages, and either increases the
middleman’s profits or lowers the price of potatoes.

It would pay the workers better to combine. Then
they might force the middleman to pay one of them
$1.25 a day, which they could share. By this means-
they would each have 62J cents a day, whereas competition
between them would result in one of them working for
37^ cents a day and the other getting nothing. This is the
idea of the trade unionist.

Consider next the effect of competition amongst the
middlemen. There are two farmers growing potatoes.
Each farmer wishes to get all the trade. Both know
that the public will always buy the cheapest article.
One farmer drops his price. This compels the other to
drop his price, for if he did not he would lose all his trade.
And when he drops his price the first drops his still
lower, and so on, until neither farmer is making any
profit. And then they compel their men to work for less
wages.

And so we see that competition amongst middlemen
reduces profits, reduces wages, and cheapens potatoes.

This, of course, applies to all trades, and not only to
the potato trade.

Now, your friends the capitalist members of Parliament,
or Congress and their friends the stupid and dishonest
men who form the newspaper Press, will tell you that
wages are regulated by the law of supply and demand,
and that it is to the interest of the worker that the prices
of all things should be low.

86

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Both these statements are lies.

Wages in this country are not regulated by the law of
supply and demand. They are regulated by competition,
and it is not to the interest of the workers that commodi¬
ties should be cheap.

We will now deal with this law of supply and demand.

Many people have got muddled over this law of supply
and demand. Their confusion is caused bv a failure to

•s

understand the difference between natural and artificial
cheapness.

Suppose we have a community of two men. One of
them grows wheat, the other catches fish, and they ex¬
change their produce.

If the fisherman has a bad catch and gets less fish than
usual, then he cannot give so much fish for so much wheat
as he is wont to do. That is to say, fish is naturally dear.
If the farmer has a bad harvest then wheat is naturally
dear. If the fisherman has a great haul of fish, then he
can give, perhaps, ten times as many fishes as usual for a
loaf of bread. Fish is naturally “ cheap.” That is to say,
it is justly cheap, because a greater quantity than usual
has been got with no more labor than usual, and the just
basis of exchange value consists in the amount of labor
embodied in the things exchanged. *

But now suppose we have a community of three men.
One is a farmer, and claims the land as his. Another is a
fisherman who owns the only boat. The third is a laborer,
who owns nothing but his strength. He cannot grow
wheat, for the farmer will not let him use the land, nor
catch fish, for the fisherman will not lend him his boat.

* Coal is dearer than water because there is more labor involved in get¬
ting it, and because it is not so easy to take from place to place. When
we buy coal we do not pay for the coal, but for the labor used in getting
the coal and bringing it to our cellars.

MEE E IE ENGLAND.

87

He goes then to the farmer as a laborer, for wages ; and
the farmer gives him, as wages, just as much wheat as
will keep him alive.

The result of this arrangement is that as there are now
two men working on the land there will be twice as much
wheat.

The farmer now gets two shares of wheat, but as he
only pays the laborer half a share, and keeps a share and
a half for himself, he can give more wheat to the fisher¬
man for his fish. That is to say that wheat is now un¬
justly cheap. It is cheap not because of the bounty of
nature, but because the laborer has been swindled out of
his rights.

Something of the same kind would happen in a com¬
munity consisting of one farmer and two fishermen. The
two fishermen would want wheat, and would undersell
each other. So fish would become cheap to the farmer,
not because of the law of supply and demand, but because
of competition. That is to say, because of the disorgani¬
zation of industry.

One of the most flagrant instances of blundering on this
subject was the speech of Mr. Thomas Burt, M. P. , when
he told the Durham miners they were wrong to strike,
because “ they might as well try to resist the force of
gravity as try to keep up wages in a falling market.” Mr.
Burt does not seem to have thought of such a thing as
preventing the market from falling. For there must be a
demand for coal. Coal is a necessary article, and the con¬
sumption is rising yearly. The public want coal. They
must have coal. Turn back now to what I said about the
exchange of corn for spades. The same rule applies to
the purchase of coal. The public will pay for coal up to
the limit of its value to them — if they cannot get it at a
lower price.

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

It was not, therefore, a decrease in the demand for coal
which caused the falling market. What was it ? It was
competition.

A few months before the Durham strike one of the
Durham firms took a contract for 280,000 tons of coal at
62| cents a ton below the Yorkshire prices.

I said then that the Durham coal owners would try to
reduce wages, and so they did.

Their excuse was a “ falling market.” The market was
falling. But it was falling because they, in their greedy
desire to steal the Yorkshire trade, had lowered their prices.

Take the case of the Cheshire salt trade. There was a
falling market there. Salt went a begging. The salt
manufacturers made no profits ; the men got low wages.
Why? Because one firm kept undercutting another.
And I suppose Mr. Burt would have said that it would be
as easy to resist the force of gravity as to keep up the
price of salt in a falling market.

But when the salt syndicate was formed the market
rose. Why ? Because all the salt was in the hands of
one firm, and there was no competition. So the price of
salt went up, and remained up until private firms were
formed outside the syndicate and competition began.
Then, of course, the price came down.

The history of the Standard Oil Trust in America shows
the same thing.

If all the coal mines in England belonged to one man,
we Should hear nothing about falling markets. Coal
would rise in price.

Put the mines into the hands of two men, and the
prices would come down because one owner would under¬
sell the other.

The present code of commercial ethics is, in my opinion,
opposed entirely to reason and justice. Nearly all our
practical economists of to-day put the consumer first, and

MERRIE ENGLAND .

89

the producer last. This is wrong. There can be no just
or sane system which does not first consider the producer
and then wisely and equitably regulate the distribution
of the things produced.

And here is an exposition of the reason and justice of
my position. The community is worked by the division
of labor. That division of labor ought to be equal and
fair. If a collier or a tram-guard is overworked or under¬
paid, he is being unjustly dealt with by the community
whom he serves. Take an illustration. Reduce the
complex community to a simple one.

There are one hundred families in a small state. Ten
are wood-cutters, ten hunters, ten shoemakers, ten tailors,
ten fishermen, and so on. Suppose the wood-cutter works
fifteen hours a day, and only receives half as much food
and clothing in return as is received by the rest of the
community who work ten hours a day. That means that
fuel is cheap to ninety families, but that all other things
are dear to ten families. It means that ten families are
suffering for the advantage of ninety families. It means
that the public of that state sweat and swindle the wood¬
cutters.

In short, wood is unfairly cheap.

Take the case of a tram-guard working, say, sixteen
hours a day for $6 a week. That man is being robbed of
all the pleasure of his life. His wife and children are
being deprived of necessary food and comfort. Now there
ought to be two guards working eight hours at $12 a week.
If the tram company makes big dividends the increased
cost should come out of those dividends. If the dividend
will not pay it, the fares should be raised. If the public
cannot afford to pay bigger fares they ought to walk. At
present supposing the dividends to be low, the public are
riding at the expense of the tram-guard’s wife and
children.

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ME ERIE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER X.

WASTE.

We, of the so-called “ educated ” classes, who take it upon us to he
the better and upper part of the world, cannot possibly understand our
relations to the rest better than we may where actual life may be seen
in front of its Shakespearean image, from the stalls of a theatre. I
never stand up to rest myself, and look round the house, without re¬
newal of wonder how the crowd in the pit, the shilling gallery, alloAv
us of the boxes and stalls to keep our places! Think of it; those
fellows behind there have housed us and fed us ; their wives have
washed our clothes, and kept us tidy ; — they have bought us the best
places,- -brought us through the cold to them; and there they sit
behind us, patiently, seeing and hearing what they may. There they
pack themselves, squeezed and distant, behind our chairs ; — we, their
elect toys and pet puppets, oiled and varnished, and incensed, lounge
in front, placidly, or for the greater part, wearily and sickly con¬
templative. — Ruskin.

We saw just now that competition amongst the workers
lowered wages, and that competition amongst the middle¬
men lowered both wages and profits. We also saw that
both kinds of competition lowered the price of goods to
the consumer or user.

This is the one great argument in favor of competition
— that it reduces the price of commodities or goods.

It is quite true, as I explained before, that we can buy
things more cheaply under competition than under a
monopoly, and this is urged as sufficient proof that compe¬
tition is a good thing. “ For,” say the defenders of the
system, “ we are all consumers, and what is good for the
consumer is good for all.”

MERRIE ENGLAND.

91

%

Now, I will prove to you beyond all question that the
one argument advanced in favor of competition is really
the strongest argument against it.

I will prove to you beyond all question that this much
praised cheapness is not always good for the general con¬
sumer, and is never good for the producer — that is to say,
for the working class.

First, allow me to expound to you my theory of waste.
I call it my theory because I discovered it myself, and
because I don’t know that any other writer has ever
alluded to it, though I may be wrong in that latter par¬
ticular.

The theory of waste goes to show that excessive cheap¬
ness is good for no one.

When a thing is too cheap we waste it. I give you two
common examples of this : salt and matches.

Many years ago, whilst riding in a train, I noticed a
drunken man wasting matches. I had noticed the same
thing before, but had never thought about it. This time
I did think about it.

There happened just then to be a good deal of talk going
on about the wretched wages and long hours of the match
and match-box makers. I began to add things up.

1 saw that at one end of the trade we had people work¬
ing long hours for low wages to make matches ; and that
at the other end of the trade we had people wasting
matches.

Tell me, from your own experience, is it not true that
of the gross number of matches bought at least one half
are wasted ?

I asked myself, firstly, “ Why do people waste matches ?”
The answer was ready — “Because matches are so cheap?
I asked myself, secondly, “ Why are match-makers so
badly paid ? ” The answer was longer coming, but it

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ME HR IE ENGLAND.

came at last, in the same words, “ Because matches are so
cheap.”

Now I saw plainly enough that when I wasted matches
I was really wasting the flesh and blood of the fellow
creatures who made them. But I could not see so plainly
how that waste might be avoided.

“ If,” I thought, “ the price of matches was doubled,
that would pay the match-makers good wages, and it would
not hurt me, for I should cease to waste them, and so
should only need one box where I now use two.”

But then came the question, “Would not that throw
half the match-makers out of work ; and if it did, what
would become of them ? ”

That question puzzled me for some time ; but at last I
answered it, and then I began to see all the iniquity of our
commercial system, and to understand the causes of the
trouble.

A few years later in an article on the Salt Trade, I said
that salt was too cheap and that the proper remedy was
to regulate the price by wages, and not the wages by the
price. Thereupon I was attacked by the editor of a
northern paper, who denied my statement, and suggested
that I was an ass.

This editor said : —

The suggested method of first fixing a good wage for the labor force
engaged in production, and afterwards fixing the price for the market of
the commodities produced upon the basis of that wage, is chimerical.
Take an instance. Blatchford, in his paper, the “ Clarion,” a paper de¬
voted to bad economies and music-hall twaddle, instances the Cheshire
salt trade . He thinks the “ producers ” should have their wages fixed at
decent sum, and the price of salt to the public regulated by this item.
Suppose it to be attempted, how would it work ? It would involve a
higher price for salt in the country to begin with . We could afford that.
There would be less salt used, and less called for. That would mean
there would be fewer men needed to produce salt. That is, many men
employed in that particular industry would be discharged and would be-

MERR1E ENGLAND.

93

take themselves to some other congested branch of industry, to overcrowd
the workers there, while those that remained would be put on short
time 1 How does this solve the problem ?

Now we can draw two inferences from that statement.
The first is, that the only effect of increasing the price of
salt would he to throw half the men out of work ; the
second is, that as those men could find no other employ¬
ment they had better be left alone.

We will begin with the second statement, and I will
show you what nonsense the newspapers of this great
country print for your instruction, my practical, hard-
headed friend.

To begin with, you see that this editor admits three
things, any one of which is sufficient to have shown him
that there is something very rotten in our present system
of trade.

He owns that if the saltworkers were thrown out of
work they could find no means of living, because the other
branches of industry are “ congested.” That is to say,
that men able and willing to work cannot find work in
this best of all possible countries.

But he does not tell you why this evil exists, nor how
to cure it.

He owns that a great deal of salt is wasted, and that
the consumer would be quite as well off if he paid
double the price he now pays.

Just consider what these admissions mean. They
mean that a useful product of nature is being wasted
and they mean that the labor of a large number of men
and women is being wasted, and they mean that both
these wastes could be stopped without hurting any one.

But this intelligent editor will not allow us to interfere,
because by stopping the waste we should throw a number
of men out of work.

94

M EERIE ENGLAND.

What are those men doing ? They are wasting their
time, and they are wasting salt ; but we must let them
go on.

Our wise editor acknowledges that the salt they make
is being wasted, but yet we are to continue to pay them
wages for wasting’ it. What do you think of him ?

Ilis plan is worse than that of employing men to dig
holes and fill them up again. For then they would only
waste time. But our clever writer makes them waste
salt as well. So that his plan is as foolish as paying men
to make salt and throw it into the river. lie is one of
those stupid people who think it is all right so long as
you find the men “ employment.” It is of no consequence
whether their work is useful work or wasteful work, so
long as they are kept working. As though a man could
eat work, and drink work, and wear work, and put work
in the penny bank against a rainy day.

What the people want is food and clothing and shelter
and leisure, not work. Work is a means, and not an end.
Men work to live, they do not live to work.

And the joke of the thing is that if these salt-boilers
were out of work, and we suggested that the corporation
of their town should employ them to make new roads,
or drains, to keep them from starving, this misleader of
the people would be the first to sit upon his editorial
chair and protest against the employment of the people
on “ unnecessary work.”

Or suppose some Socialist writer turned our editor’s
argument against the use of machinery, and said that no
machinery ought to be introduced, as its effect would be
to throw numbers of men out of employment, and drive
them to seek work in other industries already congested!
What do you think our editor would call that Social¬
ist?

MERRIE ENGLAND.

95

And now allow me to add up the sum in two ways, first
as our editor adds it up, and then as I add it up, and see
which answer looks most reasonable.

THE EDITOR’ S WAY.

Half the domestic salt is wasted. Double the price and
the waste would cease. Then only half as much salt
would be bought. Therefore only half as much would
be made. Therefore only half the hands would be needed.
Therefore half the hands would be out of work.

MY WAY.

Half the domestic salt is wasted. Double the price,
and save half the salt. Then only half as much would be
bought. Therefore only half as much would be made.
Therefore the salt-makers who now work twelve hours a
day, need only work six hours a day.

How does that strike you, John ? Or you might let
them work twelve hours a day, and double their wages.
In which case half of them can be sent to do other work.
Or you can reduce the hours to eight, and pay them 50
per cent, more wages, in which case a quarter of the men
can find other work. The advantages of this plan would
be that —

1. No salt is wasted; therefore the supply of salt will
last twice as long.

2. The consumer still gets all the salt he can use at the
price he paid for salt before.

3. The manufacturer gets the same price for one ton that
he used to get for two tons. Therefore he saves enough
in carriage, in wear and tear of machinery, in interest on
capital, in rent and other ways, to leave him a handsome
profit.

96

MERHIE ENGLAND.

4. The worker has only half as much work to do ; there¬
fore he secures a six hours’ day, and his wages remain as
they were.

How does that solve the problem ? That, John, is my
theory of waste. I call it a practical, hard-headed way
of looking at things. What do you think ?

Just apply the idea to all the trades where labor or
material is being wasted, and you will begin to know a
great deal more than the average newspaper editor, who
gets his salary by wasting ink and paper, and perpetuat¬
ing follies and lies, will ever find out — unless some sensi¬
ble person comes to help him.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

97

CHAPTER XL

CHEAPNESS !

O, God! that bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap.
— Hood.

Ah me, into what waste latitudes in this Time-Voyage have we
wandered, like adventurous Sinbads ; where the men go about as if by
galvanism, with meaningless glaring eyes, and have no soul, but only
of the beaver faculty and stomach ! The haggard despair of Cotton
Factory, coal mine operatives, Cliandos Farm laborers, in these days
is painful to behold ; but not so painful, hideous to the inner sense, as
that brutish God-forgetting, profit-and-loss Philosophy and Life-theory,
which we hear jangled on all hands of us, in senate-houses, spouting
clubs, leading articles, pulpits and platforms, everywhere as the Ulti.
mate Gospel and candid plain-English of Man’s Life, from the throats
and pens and thoughts of all-but all men ! — Carlyle.

Besides the theory of waste, we have another aspect of
cheapness to consider.

The defenders of competition say that competition
lowers the price of commodities to the consumer, and
they tell us that “ as we are all consumers, what is good
for the consumer is good for all.”

This is not true, John Smith ; for, though we are all
consumers, we are not all producers.

Remember, John, that the consumer is the user , and
though he is called the “buyer,” he is more frequently
the “ taker.”

But the producer is the maker — the worker. The in¬
terests of these two classes are not the same. It is the
interest of the buyer and the taker that the things made
by the worker should be sold cheaply. But it is to the

7

98

MERBIE ENGLAND.

interest of the worker that the things he makes should
fetch a high price.

The stupid party will tell you, John, that since you have
many things to buy and only one thing to sell, it is to
your interest that all things should be cheap.

That looks plausible. But, John, what is the one thing
you have to sell ? It is your labor. And with the money
you get for your labor you have to pay for all you get.

Now cheap goods mean cheap labor, and cheap labor
means low wages.

You have nothing but your labor to sell, and you are
told that it will pay you to sell that cheaply.

Go to a manufacturer and explain to him that it is to
his interest to sell his woollens cheap, and he will call
you a fool. Tell a greengrocer that it is to his interest to
sell his cabbages cheap, and he will throw one at you.
Why, then, my hard-headed friend, do you believe that
your interest lies in selling your labor cheap ?

You don’t believe it. No, what you believe is, that it
is to your interest that the men of other trades should sell
their labor cheap.

But there you may be mistaken. For instance, farm
labor is cheap. Hence cheap bread. But hence also the
rush of farm-laborers to the towns. Which causes an
increase in rent, a decrease in health, and supplies a large
bulk of blackleg labor with which the capitalist can defeat
you when you strike.

And now let me explain this matter clearly and fully.

In a country were the users were all makers prices
would not matter. Suppose you are a weaver, I am a
farmer. I give so much corn for so much cloth. If I
raise my price you raise yours. That is to say, we simply
exchange on equal terms.

But in a country where some of the users are not makers,

MERRIE ENGLAND. 99

it is to the interest of the makers that prices should be
high. Thus : —

You are a weaver, I am a farmer. But you work for a
cotton-lord, and I for a landlord. We have now four con¬
sumers, and only two producers. That is to say, that you
and I have now each only one person to buy from ; but
we have each three people to sell to.

I buy cloth from you, and I sell corn to you, to the
landlord, and to the cotton-lord.

You buy corn from me, and sell cloth to me, to the land¬
lord, and the cotton-lord. Thus : —

Weaver’s

Customers

{Landlord.
Cotton-lord.
Farmer.

Farmer’s

Customers

1 Landlord.

' Cotton-lord.
( Weaver.

I produce one quarter of wheat and sell it at 40s., of
which I pay 20s. in rent. You make one piece of cloth
and sell it at 40s., of which your employer takes 20s. in
profits. Here is the account : —

One quarter of wheat . j ^ages 20 j 40

One piece of cloth . j \y\^s 20 j 40

Now when that is sold you will find that each of the
four persons gets one quarter. Thus: —

By sale of wheat to Landlord . 10

to Cotton-lord . 10

to Weaver . 10

to Self . 10

40

By sale of cloth to Landlord . 10

to Cotton-lord . 10

to Farmer . 10

to Self . 10

40

100

M EERIE ENGLAND.

Now suppose we raise the price 50 per cent, and see
how it works out : —

One quarter of wheat
One piece of cloth

( Rent

20 )

) Wages

40 j

j Profit

20 }

{ Wages

40 j

GO

GO

And we sell it, as before, each to his three customers
and himself : —

By sale of wheat to Landlord . 10

to Cotton-lord . 10

to Weaver . 20

to Self . 20

GO

By sale of cloth to Landlord . 10

to Cotton-lord . 10

to Farmer . 20

to Self . 20

GO

You will see that the landlord and the cotton-lord now
only get half as much corn and cloth as we get. flow is
that ?

It is because the price of the goods has been raised, but
the rent and interest have not been raised. The two
idlers have still the same money to spend, but it will not
buy them as much. Whereas at the low prices we, the
workers, only got one-half of our earnings, we now get
two-thirds of our earnings. Whereas the two idlers got
one-half our earnings they noV only get one-third of our
earnings.

This means that we have doubled our wages. It means
that the value of labor has gone up, and that the value of
money has gone down.

Before we can go any further, I must show you my
method of dividing the nation into three classes, instead
of into two classes as is usual.

ME lilt IE ENGLAND. 101

You are used to the common division of the people into
two classes, thus : —

1. The rich idlers.

2. The poor workers.

And you too often suppose that only the idle rich are use¬
less, and that all the workers are useful.

This is an error. By this division you get a small class
of non-producers and a large class of producers.

But if you add to the idle rich all the domestic servants
and other people who wait upon them, you will find a
large class of non-producers and a large class of producers.

But then again you must sub-divide this large class
of producers into two classes : —

1. The producers of useful things.

2. The producers of useless things.

And you will find that a very large number of the
workers are really the servants of the rich, and are work¬
ing at the production of things which only the rich use, and
are supported upon the wages which the rich pay them.

Now the rich pay them with the money which they,
the rich, get from the class of the producers of neces¬
saries.

A landlord owns an estate and employs two men to
cultivate it. We have here only two workers; but we
have three eaters. The two men have to keep three.

But if the landlord takes away one of the farmers, and
employs him to build the landlord a house, we have then
only one man producing food, but we have still three men
eating it. One man now has to keep three.

You understand me, John ? Every person is a consumer
of necessaries, and those who produce necessaries have to
produce necessaries for all.

102

ME HR IE ENGLAND.

Now, the lower the price of necessaries the more neces¬
saries do the rich and his dependents get, and the less do
the producers get.

Cheap food and clothing for the producers mean cheap
food and clothing for the non-producers.

The non-producers are kept by the rich upon the money
taken from the producers.

The cheaper the food and clothing the less do the pro¬
ducers get back from the rich.

The cheaper the food and clothing are the more non¬
producers can the rich feed.

The more non-producers the rich can feed the more they
will withdraw from the work of production.

The more they withdraw from the work of production
the fewer there will he to produce food and clothing for all.

The fewer there are to produce food and clothing for
all, the harder and the longer must those producers work.

Thus it is quite plain that under capitalism it is to the
interest of the producer that commodities should be dear.

But observe, that it is no use the workers forcing up
their wages unless at the same time they can prevent the
landlord and the capitalist from raising rent and interest.

As I showed you before, a monopoly can raise prices.
But it is well known that a monopoly, like the Oil Trust
or Salt Syndicate, while raising prices will not raisewages.

But though a monopoly of capitalists will not serve a
useful purpose, it may be possible to find some kind of
monopoly that will serve a useful purpose.

What we want is a monopoly which will raise wages
and keep down rent and interest. This is to say, a mono¬
poly which will ensure to the worker the enjoyment of all
the wealth he produces.

There is only one kind of monopoly which can do this,
and it is a State monopoly.

MEBBIE ENGLAND. 103

Now, a State monopoly is Socialism, and I will proceed
to deal with Socialism in my next chapter.

But, before leaving this question of cheapness I want to
anticipate one objection which may be brought against my
statement that cheap commodities mean cheap labor.

Some stupid parson, preaching upon a lecture of mine
which he had heard, but had not understood, declared
that it was nonsense to say that cheap commodities meant
cheap labor, for whereas commodities are now universally
cheaper than they were, wages are universally higher.

I am not so sure that this is strictly true about the
advance in wages and fall in prices. Rents are certainly
higher than they were, and meat is dearer. But whether
or not it be true that the workers get more money and
can buy more with it, that has nothing at all to do with
my argument.

All commodities are produced by labor, therefore to
drive commodities down to their cheapest rate must result
in cheap labor. And you know that as soon as ever
prices begin to fall the capitalist begins to talk about
lowering wages. And you know that bread and coal and
clothing and salt and matches and very many other things
are simply cheap because the people who produce them
are not half paid.

Matches are so cheap that you can get 800 matches for
twopence-halfpenny. Now, if the retail price of matches
is 5 cents for 800, what is the wholesale price ? Put it at
twopence.

If the manufacturer charges twopence for 800 matches
after allowing for cost of wood, wick, wax, phosphorus,
printing, paste, advertisements, carriage, and labor, how
much do you suppose the manufacturer pays the women
and children who make the matches ? I don’t know what
these women and children get. I do know that I have

104

MERRIE ENGLAND.

heard of women and girls working sixteen hours a day
for seven days making match boxes, and earning about
$1 a week by the work. And I ask you, how is
a woman to live on $1 a week and pay rent? And
do you ever consider the lives of the people who make
these marvellously cheap things ? And do you ever
think what kind of homes they have ; in what kind of
districts the homes are situated ; and what becomes of
those people when they are too ill, or too old, or too infirm
to earn even four shillings as the price of a hundred and
twelve hours work ?

In my Utopia, when Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s
keeper,” he would be answered with a stern affirmative.
In my Utopia a thing would be considered cheap or dear
according to the price it cost; and not according to the
price that was paid for it. Matches may be dear — from
a Utopian point of view — at 5 cents for 800 ; because, you
see, it may be necessary to add a few items to the cost of
production which are not charged for in the retail price.
As thus : —

Item. — 100 women done to death by labor before their time.

Item. — 200 children killed by preventable diseases in the slums.

Item. — Say, 10 boys driven into a career of crime by hunger and
neglect.

Item. — Say, six girls driven to a life of' shame by similar causes.

Item. — The cost of keeping several broken old male and female
paupers.

Item. — Pauper graves for the same.

Item. — Cost of fat beadle kept to superintend the above old wrecks.

Item. — An increase of rates for police and prison officials.

Item. — The parish doctor, the dealer in adulterated gin, the script¬
ure reader, the coffin maker, and a fraction of the Cabinet Minister’s
time spent in proving that “ you cannot interfere with the freedom of
contract ” nor “tamper with the economic balance between producer
and consumer.”

Add all these items on to the match bill, Mr. Smith, and
tell me if you call those matches cheap.

M EERIE ENGLAND.

105

CHAPTER XII.

SOCIALISM !

One thing ought, to be aimed at by all men ; that the interest of each
individually, and of all collectively, should be the same ; for if each
should grasp at his individual interest, all human society will be
dissolved. — Cicero .

When I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favor¬
able to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any
laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things; for
so wise a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level
was the only way to make a nation happy, which cannot be obtained
so long as there is property ; for when every man draws to himself all
that he can compass by one title or another, it must needs follow that
how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth
of it among themselves, the rest must fall into indigence. So that
there will be two sorts of people among them who deserve that their
fortunes should be interchanged, the former useless, but wicked and
ravenous, and the latter, who by their constant industry serve the public
more than themselves, sincere and modest men. From whence I am
persuaded that till property is taken away there can be no equitable
or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed;
for so long as that is maintained the greatest and the far best part of
mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. —
Sir Thos. More.

John Smith, clo you know what Socialism is ? You have
heard it denounced many a time, and it is said that you
do not believe in it ; but do you know what it is?

Good or bad, wise or foolish, it is all I have to offer as
a remedy for the many evils of which I have been
complaining.

Good or bad, wise or foolish, Socialism is the only
remedy in sight. None of its opponents, none of your
friends, the members of Parliament, old trade union

106

ME HR IE ENGLAND.

leaders, editors, parsons, priests, lawyers, and men of
substance have any remedy to offer at all.

Some of them are sorry or profess to be sorry, that
there is so much misery in the land ; some of them offer
a little mild charity, some a little feeble legislation, but
there is no great radical cure to be heard of except
Socialism.

What if Socialism ? I am going to tell you, and I ask

you to listen patiently, and to judge fairly. You have

heard Socialism reviled by speakers and writers. You

know that the Pope has denounced it, and that the

Bishop of Manchester has denounced it. You know that

men like Herbert Spencer, Charles Bradlaugh, and John

Morley have written and spoken against it, and doubtless

you have got an idea that it is as unworthy, as unwise,

and as unworkable as such men sav it is. Now I will

%/

describe it for you and you shall draw your own con¬
clusions.

But before I tell you what Socialism is, I must tell you
what Socialism is not. For half our time as champions
of Socialism is wasted in denials of false descriptions of
Socialism ; and to a large extent the anger, the ridicule,
and the argument of the opponents of Socialism are
hurled against a Socialism which has no existence except
in their own heated minds.

Socialism does not consist in violently seizing upon the
property of the rich and sharing it out amongst the poor.

Socialists do not propose by a single Act of Parliament
or by a sudden revolution, to put all men on an equality,
and compel them to remain so. Socialism is not a wild
dream of a happy land where the apples will drop off the
trees into our open mouths, the fish come out of the rivers
and fry themselves for dinner, and the looms turn out
ready made suits of velvet with golden buttons without

MERRIE ENGLAND.

107

the trouble of coaling the engine. Neither is it a dream
of a nation of stained-glass angels, who never say damn,
who always love their neighbors better than themselves,
and who never need to work unless they wish to.

No, Socialism is none of those things. It is a scientific
scheme of national Government, entirely wise, just, and
practical. And now let us see.

For convenience, sake, Socialism is generally divided
into two kinds. These are called —

1. Practical Socialism.

2. Ideal Socialism.

Really they are only part of one whole ; Practical
Socialism being a kind of preliminary step towards Ideal
Socialism, so that we might with more reason call them
Elementary and advanced Socialism.

I am an Ideal Socialist, and desire to have the whole
Socialistic programme carried out.

Practical Socialism is so simple that a child may under¬
stand it. It is a kind of national scheme of co-operation,
managed by the State. Its programme consists, essen¬
tially, of one demand, that the land and other instruments
of production shall be the common property of the people,
and shall be used and governed by the people for the
people.

Make the land and all the instruments of production
State property; put all farms, mines, mills, ships, rail¬
ways, and shops under State control, as you have already
put the postal and telegraphic services under State con¬
trol, and Practical Socialism is accomplished.

The postal and telegraphic service is the standing
proof of the capacity of the State to manage the public
business with economy and success.

That which has been done with the post-offices may be
done with mines, trams, railways, and factories.

1 C 8

M EERIE ENGLAND.

The difference between Socialism and the state of things
now in existence will now be plain to you.

At present the land does not belong the people, but
to a few rich men. The mines, mills, ships, shops, canals,
railways, houses, docks, harbors, and machinery do not
belong to the people, but to a few rich men.

Therefore the land, the factories, the railways, ships,
and machinery are not used for the general good of the
people, but are used to make wealth for the few rich men
who own them.

Socialists say that this arrangement is unjust and un¬
wise, that it entails waste as well as misery, and that it
would be better for all, even for the rich, that the land
and other instruments of production should become the
property of the State, just as the post-offices have become
the property of the State.

Socialists demand that the State shall manage the rail¬
ways and the mines and the mills just as it now manages
the post-offices.

Socialists declare that if it is wicked and foolish and
impossible for the State to manage the factories, mines,
and railways, then it is wicked and foolish and impossible
for the State to manage the post-offices.

Socialists declare that as the State carries the people’s
letters more cheaply and more efficiently than they were
carried by private enterprise, so it could grow corn and
weave cloth and work the railway systems more cheaply
and more efficiently than they are now worked by private
enterprise.

Socialists declare that as our Government now makes
food and clothing and arms and accoutrements for the
army and navy and police, so it could make them for the
people.

Socialists declare that as many corporations make gas,

ME IiE IE ENGLAND.

109

provide and manage the water-supply, look after the
paving and lighting and cleansing of the streets, and
often do a good deal of building and farming, so there is
no reason why they should not get coal, and spin yarn,
and make boots, and bread, and beer for the people.

Socialists point out that if all the industries of the na¬
tion were put under State control, all the profit, which
now goes into the hands of a few idle men, would go into
the coffers of the State — which means that the people
would enjoy the benefits of all the wealth they create.

This, then, is the basis of Socialism, that England should
be owned by the English, and managed for the benefit of
the English, instead of being owned by a few rich idlers,
and mismanaged by them for the benefit of themselves.

But Socialism means more than the mere transference
of the wealth of the nation to the nation.

Socialism would not endure competition. Where it
found two factories engaged in under-cutting each other
at the price of long hours and low wages to the workers,
it would step in and fuse the two concerns into one, save
an immense sum in cost of working, and finally produce
more goods and better goods at a lower figure than were
produced before.

But Practical Socialism would do more than that. It
would educate the people. It would provide cheap and
pure food. It would extend and elevate the means of
study and amusement. It would foster literature and
science and art. It would encourage and reward genius
and industry. It would abolish sweating and jerry work.
It would demolish the slums and erect good and hand¬
some dwellings. It would compel all men to do some
kind of useful work. It would recreate and nourish the
craftsman’s pride in his craft. It would protect women
and children. It would raise the standard of health and

110

MEIi HIE ENGLAND.

morality ; and it would take the sting out of pauperism
by paying pensions to honest workers no longer able to
work.

Why nationalize the land and instruments of produc¬
tion? To save waste; to save panics; to avert trade
depressions, famines, strikes, and congestion of industrial
centres ; and to prevent greedy and unscrupulous sharpers
from enriching themselves at the cost of the national
health and prosperity. In short, to replace anarchy and
war by law and order. To keep the wolves out of the
fold, to tend and fertilize the field of labor instead of al¬
lowing the wheat to be strangled by the tares, and to
regulate wisely the distribution of the seed-corn of in¬
dustry so that it might no longer be scattered broadcast
— some falling on rocks, and some being eaten up by the
birds of the air.

I will now give you one example of the difference
between Socialism and the existing system.

You remember my chapter on Salt and Waste. Under
existing conditions what was the state of the salt trade?

The mines and manufacture owned and carried on by
a number of firms, each of which competes against all the
rest.

Result : Most of the small firms ruined ; most of the
large firms on the verge of ruin. Salt-boilers, the work¬
men, working twelve hours a day for 75 cents and the
public wasting more salt than they use.

Put this trade under State control. They will cease to
make salt to waste ; they will establish a six-hours day,
and they will raise the wages of the men to, say, $10 a
week.

To pay these extra wages they will abolish all the
unnecessary middlemen and go-betweens. The whole in¬
dustry will be placed under one management. A vast

MERE IE ENGLAND.

Ill

number of clerks, agents, travellers, canvassers, and ad¬
vertisers will be dispensed with, the salaries of the man¬
agers will be almost entirely saved, and the cost of dis¬
tribution will be cut down by fully seventy-five per cent.

The same system would be pursued with other indus¬
tries.

Take the soap trade. There is one firm which spends
over $500,000 a year in advertisement, and the head of
that firm makes $500,000 a year in profits. Socialism
would save all that advertisement, and would pay a man¬
ager a reasonable salary and produce the soap at less than
its present cost, whilst paying the workers good wages
for shorter hours than they now work.

You will observe that under Practical Socialism there
would be wages paid ; and, probably, the wages of managers
would be higher than the wages of workmen ; and the wages
of artists, doctors, and other clever and highly-trained
men would be higher than those of weavers or navvies.

Under Ideal Socialism there would be no money at all,
and no wages. The industry of the country would be or¬
ganized and managed by the State, much as the post-
office now is ; goods of all kinds would be produced and
distributed for use, and not for sale, in such quantities as
were needed, hours of labor would be fixed, and every
citizen would take what he or she desired from the com¬
mon stock. Food, clothing, lodging, fuel, transit, amuse¬
ments, and all other things would be abolutely free, and
the only difference between a prime minister and a collier
would be the difference of rank and occupation.

I have now given you a clear idea of what Socialism is.
If I wrote another hundred pages I could tell you no
more. But two important tasks remain for me to do.

First, to give you some idea of the means by which I
think Socialism could be established.

112

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

Second, to answer the chief arguments commonly used
against Socialism by its opponents.

What we have to find out is, can Socialism be estab¬
lished, and how?

And is Socialism just and desirable ; and practicable if
we can succeed in getting it ?

MERRIE EXGLAND.

113

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretched
wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce merely.

Nor the place of ceaseless salute of new-comers, or the anchor-lifters
of the departing,

Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops, selling
goods from the rest of the earth,

Nor the place of the best libraries and schools, nor the place where
money is plentiest, ....

Where the city stands with the brawniest breed of orators and
bards,

Where the city stands that is beloved by these, and loves them in
return and understands them,

Where no monuments exist to heroes but in the common words and
deeds,

Where thrift is in its place, and prudence is in its place, ....

Where the city of the faithfulest friends stands,

Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,

Where the city of the healthiest father stands,

Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,

There the great city stands. — Walt Whitman.

Th«e question is, how can Socialism be accomplished ?
I confess that I approach this question with great reluc¬
tance. The establishment and organization of a Socialis¬
tic State are the two branches of the work to which I
have given least attention. Hitherto I have devoted my
efforts to teaching the principles of Socialism, and to dis¬
proving the arguments brought against it. But I will do
my best, merely observing that I can lay claim to no
special knowledge nor to any special aptitude for such a
task. I have no “ system ” ready cut and dried. I don’t
8

114

MERRIE ENGLAND.

think any sensible Socialist would offer such a system.
Socialists are practical people in these days, and know
that coats must be cut according to cloth.

But on one point I am quite certain, and that is that
the first thing to do is to educate the people in Socialism.
Let us once get the people to understand and desire So¬
cialism and I am sure we may very safely leave them to
secure it.

The most useful work which Socialists can do at present
is the work of education and organization.

Socialism will not come by means of a sudden coup . It
will grow up naturally out of our surroundings, and will
develop naturally and by degrees. But its growth and its
development may be materially hastened.

It always amuses me to hear the intensely practical
person demand, How are you going to do it ? When will
you make a start ? Where do you propose to leave off?

My dear Mr. Smith, it is too late to ask when we are
going to begin. We have begun. We, or rather they,
began long ago. Nearly all law is more or less Social¬
istic, for nearly all law implies the right of the State to
control individuals for the benefit of the nation. But of
late years the law has been steadily becoming more and
more Socialistic. I will give you a few examples.

The abolition of toll bars and bridge tolls was Social¬
istic action, for it made the roads and bridges common
property.

Most of the Building Acts, by virtue of which streets
must be of a specified width, back-to-back houses are for¬
bidden, etc. , are Socialistic, for they take away from the
property owner the power to do as he likes with his
own.

The Truck Acts are Socialistic, for they deny the em¬
ployer the power to swindle his workmen. The Factory

MERRIE ENGLAND. 115

Acts are Socialistic, for they deny the employer the power
to work women and children to death.

The Compulsory and Free Education Acts are Socialistic.
The Acts which compel the inspection of mines and
factories, the inspection of boilers, the placing of a load-
line on ships, and the granting of relief to paupers, are
all Socialistic Acts, for they all interfere with the “ free¬
dom of contract ” and the “ rights of the individual.”
Finally, the acquirement of the postal and telegraphic ar¬
rangements by the State, and the establishment of corpo¬
rate gas and water works are Socialistic measures, for
they recognize the Socialistic principle of common owner¬
ship, production, and distribution.

You will see then, that Socialism has begun, so that the
question of where to begin is quite superfluous.

As for the question of where we shall leave off, that is
a foolish question, and only a fool would try to answer it.
There is no such thing as finality. The world will go on
after we are dead and forgotten. IIow do I know what
our grandchildren will do ? Should I not be a conceited
ass to attempt to lay down laws for them ? My only duty
towards posterity, Mr. Smith, is to smooth the road for
them as much as possible, and so give them a fairer chance
than we have had to make the best of life.

Socialism will come, of that I feel sure. And it will
come by paths not seen by me, and will develop in ways
which I do not dream of. My task is to help its arrival.

Still, I will offer you, in all modesty, a few ideas on the
subject. I can at least point out to you some of the things
that need to be done, and I may even suggest what seems
to me reasonable ways of doing them.

What are the things to be done? We want to find
work for the unemployed. We want to get pensions for
the aged. We want to abolish the poor-law system. We

116

MERRIE ENGLAND.

want to produce our own food so as to be independent of
foreign nations. We want to get rid of the slums and
build good houses for the workers. We want to abolish
the sweater and shorten hours of labor and raise wages.
We want to get rid of the smoke nuisance, and the pol¬
lution of rivers ; and we want to place the land and all
other instruments of production under the control of the
State.

Before we can accomplish any of these reforms, we must
have a public in favor of them, and a Parliament that
will give effect to the Popular demands. So that the first
thing we need is education, and the second thing we need
is a Socialist Party.

I am well aware that you may have a democratic parlia¬
ment and not get Socialistic measures passed. We see
that in America. But if the Democratic Parliament has
a Socialistic Public behind it there need be no fear of
failure.

Suppose, then, that we have a Socialistic Public and
Parliament. What is to be done ? It would be presump¬
tion for me to instruct such a Parliament. I am only
giving you, John Smith, my poor ideas.

Perhaps we should begin with the land Perhaps with
the unemployed. Perhaps with the mines and railways.

Suppose we began with the land. The land must be
made the property of the nation. Very well, what about
compensation ?

Personally I am against compensation, but I suppose it
would have to be given, and my only hope is that it would
be kept as low as possible. So with the mines and the
railways. They could be bought, and the smaller the
price the better.

Then as to the unemployed. They must be registered
in their various trades, and set to work.

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

117

I should divide them into three principal classes —

1. Agricultural laborers;

2. General laborers ;

3. Building trades.

The first I should send to work on State farms, the
second to work at public improvements, and the third to
build dwelling-houses for the people.

I daresay, you may feel rather uneasy at these sugges¬
tions, and imagine that I am going to ruin the nation by
saddling upon it the keep of a vast army of paupers.

But, my practical friend, the worst use you can put a
man to is to make a tramp of him. All the tramps, bear
in mind, and all the able-bodied paupers have to be fed
and lodged now in some fashion. And although they are
badly fed, and treated worse than dogs, you must not sup¬
pose that they cost little. For you must know that it
costs about ninepence to give a pauper tlireepennyworth
of food, and when you take into account the large numbers
of policemen and other officials who are paid to watch and
punish and attend to the tramps, it will be quite clear
that a tramp is a more costly luxury than he appears to
be.

But besides that it is much better that a tramp should
be making something than marring himself ; and you
must not suppose that the State farms would be a burden
to you. Decently managed, they would soon prove a
great benefit.

For don’t you see that all those hands which are now
idle would then be producing wealth, and when I remind
you that the best authorities agree that a four-hours day
would enable the people to produce enough for all, you
will see that our unemployed could, on those State farms,
very easily keep themselves.

Each of these farms would be the base for the forma-

118

MERRIE ENGLAND.

tion of a new communal town — one of the Towns of

•A

Merrie England. To it would be sent all kinds of crafts¬
men : tailors, shoemakers, joiners, and the like, so that
each commune would be complete in itself.

Houses upon a new model, to be arranged by a special
State Board of architects, artists, sanitary engineers, and
Socialists, would be built for the workers, with baths,
libraries, dining-rooms, theatres, meeting-rooms, gardens,
and every kind of institution needful for the education,
health, and pleasure of the people.

Understand, further, that these men would not be
treated as paupers. They would be treated as honorable
citizens, and after rent and other charges had been paid
to the State, they would receive all the produce of their
labor.

Pensions would be granted to the aged poor, and all
the workhouses and casual wards would be abolished.

There would be no such thing as a pauper, or a man
out of work, or a beggar or a tramp.

Meanwhile it would be a wise thing to form a com¬
mission of the cleverest mechanical engineers and inventors
for the purpose of developing electricity, so as to do away
with steam power, with gas lighting, and the smoke
nuisance.

Then we should very probably establish a universal
eight-hours day, and a plan for educating and feeding all
children free at the public schools.

We should nationalize the railways, ships, canals, dock¬
yards, mines, and farms, and put all those industries
under State control.

We should have an Agricultural Minister just as we
now have a Postmaster-General. He would be held re¬
sponsible that the department under him produced bread
and vegetables, meat and fruit for 36 millions of people,

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

119

just as the Postmaster-General is now held responsible
for the carriage and delivery of our letters.

So by degrees we should get all the land and instru¬
ments of production into the hands of the State, and so
by degrees we should get our industry organized. These
are my ideas. They are very crude, and of course very
imperfect. But don’t trouble on that score. When your
Public understands Socialism and desires to establish it
there will be no difficulty about plans. Just get a num¬
ber of your cleverest organizers and administrators into
committee and let them formulate a scheme. Depend
upon it they will produce a much better scheme than
mine, though I think even mine is better than none at all,
and as I said before I only offer it to give you an idea of
the possibilities of the task before us.

This question of Socialism is the most important and
imperative question of the age. It will divide, is now
dividing, society into two camps. In which camp will you
elect to stand? On the one side there are individualism
and competition — leading to a “ great trade ” and great
miseries. On the other side is justice, without which can
come no good, from which can come no evil. On the one
hand, are ranged all the sages, all the saints, all the mar¬
tyrs, all the noble manhood and pure womanhood of the
world ; on the other hand, are the tyrant, the robber, the
manslayer, the libertine, the usurer, the slave-driver, the
drunkard, and the sweater. Choose your party, then, my
friend, and let us get to the fighting.

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MElilUE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE INCENTIVE OF GAIN.

Supply-and-demand, — Alas! for what noble work was there ever
yet any audible “ demand ” in that poor sense ? The man of Macedo¬
nia speaking in vision to an Apostle Paul, “ Come over and help us,”
did not specify what rate of wages he would give ! Or was the Chris¬
tian Religion itself accomplished by Prize Essays, Bridgewater
Bequests, and a “ minimum of four thousand five hundred a year? ”
No demand that I heard of was made them, audible in any Labor
Market, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, or other the like em¬
porium and hiring establishment ; silent were all these from any
whisper of such demand ; powerless were all these to “ supply it ” had
the demand been in thunder and earthquake, with gold El Dorados
and Mahometan Paradises for the reward. — (Jarlyle.

Each life’s unfulfilled, you see,

It hangs still patchy and scrappy;

We have not sighed deep, laughed free,

Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy.

— Browning.

We will how proceed to consider some of the stock
arguments used against Socialism.

Non-Socialists are in the habit of saying that Socialism
demands a complete change in human nature. They say
Socialism is very pretty in theory, hut that it is wrong
because human nature is not good enough for Socialism.
They tell us that we Socialists are mistaken because we
have built up a scheme without first considering human
nature. They are entirely mistaken.

The fact is that we Socialists have studied human
nature, and that our opponents only object to Socialism
because they do not understand human nature at all.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

121

“ Socialism,” say these critics, “ is impossible, because
it would destroy the incentive of gain.” The incentive of
gain.

And then they quote the dogma of the political econo¬
mist : —

The social affections are accidental and disturbing elements in
human nature, hut avarice and the desire of progress are constant ele¬
ments.

Avarice, they say, is a constant element of human
nature, and they proceed to build up what they foolishly
call “a science” of human affairs upon this one single
element. They ignore the second element, “ The desire
of progress” which I have marked in italics, and the only
conclusion we can come to, after reading their stupid
books and shallow articles, is the conclusion that they
recognize avarice, that is love of money, as the ruling pas¬
sion of mankind.

This assumption of the economists is due to ignorance,
to the densest ignorance of the human nature which they
tell us we have failed to study.

Political economy is a science of human affairs. Every
science which professes to be a science of human affairs,
must be built upon an estimate of human nature. If it is
built upon a false conception of human nature, the science
is a failure. If it is built upon a true conception of
human nature, the science is a success.

Now the political economy of our opponents is built
upon a false conception of human nature. In the first
place, it recognizes only one motive, which is sheer folly.
In the second place, it assumes that the strongest motive
is avarice, which is untrue.

These flaws are due to the fact that the founders and
upholders of this system of grab and greed are men who
have never possessed either the capacity or the opportunity

122

MERRIE ENGLAND.

for studying human nature. Mere bookmen, school-men,
business-men, and logic-choppers can never be authorities
on human nature. The great authorities on hum all nature
are the poets, the novelists, the artists, and the men whose
lives and labors bring them into daily contact with their
fellow creatures.

The only school for the study of human nature is the
world. The only text-books are the works of men like
Shakespeare, Hugo, Cervantes, Sterne, and other students
who learned in that school.

But the effectual study of human nature demands from
the student a vast fund of love and sympathy. You will
never get admitted into the heart of a fellow-creature un¬
less you go as a friend.

I remember as a child reading a fairy tale of a prince
who had given to him a feather of magic properties.
When he touched people with that feather they spoke
what was in their mind. Such a feather with such
powers you may have any day if you will, and the name
of it is love. That is the magic feather of Shakespeare,
of Sterne, and of Cervantes. If you would witness the
manifestation of its power, go to your books and make
acquaintance with Sancho Panza and Uncle Toby, and
with Rosalind and Dogberry, and Mercutio and Macbeth.

The study of human nature is a most difficult one.
Only specially-gifted men can master it ; and that with
much pains. Judge, then, for yourself whether the mot¬
ley mob of ready-writers in the press are authorities on
such a subject. Judge for yourself whether a man who
spends all his days in the study of economics and the
mathematic sciences is qualified to build up a system
which depends upon a deep and wide knowledge of the
souls of men. Go now and contrast the Frankenstein
monster of the political-economist with Sterne’s “ Mule-

ME BE IE ENGLAND.

123

teer,” Eliot’s “ Silas Marner,” Shakespeare’s “ Hamlet,” or
Rabelais’ “ Panurge,” and decide for yourself as to wheth¬
er or not the study of literature is of any use in the study
of Social Science.

Consider the lady nurse at the seat of war. Gentle,
delicate, loving, and lovable, of high intelligence, of great
beauty, young, refined, and educated, she leaves pleasure
and home and ease, and all the pomps and flatteries of
courts and assemblies, to labor amid peril and hardship
and all the sickening and dreadful sounds and sights of
the battle-field, the hospital, and the camp. Amid pesti¬
lence and blood, amid death and mutilation, you find her,
calm and gentle and fearless. Dressing loathsome
wounds, soothing fevered heads, hearing the imprecations
and the groans of delirious and sick men, always unself¬
ish, always patient, always kind, with but one motive
and that charity, without any crown or recompense of
glory or reward — such is the lady nurse at the skat of
war. It is a noble picture — is it not ? W ell, that is human
nature.

Consider now the outcast Jezebel of the London pave¬
ment. Fierce and cunning, and false and vile. Ghastly
of visage under her paint and grease. A creature debased
below the level of the brutes, with the hate of a devil in
her soul and the fire of Hell in her eyes. Lewd of gesture,
strident of voice, wanton of gaze ; using language so foul
as to shock the pot-house ruffian, and laughter whose sound
makes the blood run cold. A dreadful spectre, shame¬
less, heartless, reckless, and horrible. A creature whose
touch is contamination, whose words burn like a flame,
whose leers and ogles make the soul sick. A creature
living in drunkenness and filth. A moral blight. A beast
of prey who has cast down many wounded, whose victims
fill the lunatic ward and the morgue ; a thief, a liar, a

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

hopeless, lost, degraded wretch, of whom it has been well
said, “ Her feet take hold of Hell ; her house is the way to
the grave, going down to the chamber of death.” It is an
awful picture — is it not? But that is human nature.

There is the character of Don Quixote, that is human
nature, so is the character of Sancho Panza. The same
applies to the characters of Sam Weller and Bill Sikes, of
Hermione and Lady Macbeth, of Ancient Pistol and Corio-
lanus, of Corporal Trim and Corporal Brock, of John Knox
and Charles II., of Voltaire and Martin Luther, of Grace
Darling and Carmen, of John Wesley and Tom Sayers.

There is human nature in Raleigh’s spreading of the
cloak before the Queen ; in the wounded Sydney giving
up the cup of water to the wounded soldier ; in Kelson on
the deck of the “ Victory ” with his breast ablaze with
orders ; in Napoleon afraid to die at Sedan ; in St. Paul’s
endurance of stripes and contumely ; in Judas selling his
master for thirty pieces of silver.

Human nature is a complex and an awful thing. It is
true of man that he is fearfully and wonderfully made.
But consider all these types of humanity, picture to your¬
self the soldier at his post, the thief at his work, the smith
at the forge, the factory girl at the loom, the actor on the
stage, the priest at his prayers, the sot at his can, the
mother with her babe, the widow at the husband’s grave,
the judge in his wig, the Indian in his paint, the farmer
at the plough, the beggar asleep in the ditch, the peer
with his betting book, the surgeon with his knife, the
street arab in the slums, and the young girl dreaming
over a love tale, and then recall to your mind the blood¬
less, soulless abortion of the political economist, and the
“unit” of “Society,” whose purpose in life is to “pro¬
duce,” and whose only motive power is the “ desire for
gain.”

MERRIE ENGLAND.

125

The last refuge of Gradgrind, when he is beaten by
Socialistic argument, is the assertion that human nature
is incapable of good. But this is not true. Men instinct¬
ively prefer light to darkness, love to hate, and good to
evil.

The most selfish man would not see a fellow-creature
die or suffer if he could save him without personal cost
or risk.

Only a lunatic would wantonly destroy a harvest or
poison a well, unless he might thereby reap some personal
advantage.

It is clear, therefore, that men will do good for its own
sake ; but they will not do evil except with the hope of
gain. And this may be said of the lowest and the basest
types of mankind. But of the highest, even of the inter¬
mediate types of mankind, how much more may be said ?
So much more, indeed, as may overthrow Gradgrind and
his brutal theories, and bury him and them in the ruins
of his arguments of ashes and of his defences of clay.
For mankind turn to the sun, even to seeking it through
fog and storm. They will obey God’s commandment
when they can hear it, and resist the temptations of Satan
with such power as they possess. True are the words of
Tennyson : —

We needs must love the highest when we see it,

Not Launcelot, nor another.

“ Miserabler theory ” — says Carlyle — “ miserabler the¬
ory than that of money on the ledger being the primary
rule for empires, or for any higher entity than city owls,
and their mice-catching, cannot be propounded.”

Major Burke, of the Wild West, told me one day that
on the prairies the cowboys went about finger on trigger,
ever on the qui vive for an ambush. If a leaf stirred they

126

MERE IE ENGLAND.

fired, if a twig snapped they fired ; and in about five cases
out of a hundred they shot an Indian.

This is the state in which men live under a competitive
commercial system. It is war. The hand of every man
is against every man’s hand. Men move finger on trigger,
and fire at the falling of a leaf. But in a Socialistic state
of society they would no more go armed and in fear of
their fellow-creatures than did the Wild West Cowboys
in London.

Then the Church speaks, saying that men are born bad.
Now, I hold that human nature is not innately bad. I
take the scientists’ view that man is an undeveloped
creature. That he is a being risen from lower forms of
life, that he is slowly working out his development — in
an upward direction — and that he is yet a long way from
the summit. IIow far he is below the angels, how far
above the brutes, in his pilgrimage is a matter for dis¬
pute. I believe that he is a great deal better than the
Church and the economist suppose him to be ; and that
the greater part of what these superior persons call his
“ badness” is due to the conditions under which he lives,
or in which he and his fathers have been bred.

It is no use arguing whether or not man is bad by
nature, and without respect to circumstances. Man is a
creature of circumstances. You cannot separate him
from his surroundings, or he ceases to exist. We will
waive the discussion of what man might be, and concede
to our opponents the advantage of considering him as he
is. We will consider man as we see him, and his circum¬
stances as we see them.

The question asked is whether human nature is bad.
We must begin by asking under what circumstances?
Will a peach tree bear peaches? Yes, if planted in good
soil and against a south wall. Will a rose tree flourish in

MEBRIE ENGLAND.

127

England ? Not if you set it in an ash-heap and exclude
the light and air. Is a river a beautiful and a wholesome
thing? Yes, when it is fed by the mountain streams,
washed by the autumn rains, and runs over a pebbly bed,
between grassy meadows decked with water lilies, fringed
with flowering rushes, shaded by stately trees ; but not
when it is polluted by city sewers, stained by the refuse
of filthy dye-vats and chemical works ; not when its bed
is slime, its banks ashes, and when the light falling upon
it is the flame of forges, and the shadows those of mills,
and manure works, and prisons. Is human nature sweet,
and holy, and fruitful of good things? Yes. When it
gets light and air and culture, such as we give to the
beasts of the farm and to the lilies of the field ; but when
it is poisoned and perverted and defiled, when it is crushed,
cursed, and spat upon, then human nature becomes bad.
Tell me, then, shall we, in judging rivers, take the Irwell ;
or shall we, in judging men, take the slums, or the City
Council or the House of Commons, or the Bourse, or the
Stock Exchange, or any other body where vulgarity, and
aggression, and rascality, and selfish presumption arc the
elements of success ? No thing on this earth can be good
under adverse conditions — not the river, not the green
grass, not the skylark, nor the rose ; but if a thing can be
good under propitious circumstances we say of it, “ This
is good.” We say that of all the things of the earth ex¬
cept man. Of man we say, without hesitation and with¬
out conditions — “ He is bad.”

We will leave the Mongolian, the Turanian, and other
inferior races out of our calculation, and take the Cau¬
casian race as the type of humanity. Then it may be
said that several intellectual qualities are common to all
men. The average man, under average conditions, is
fond of woman, fond of children — especially his own. He

m

MERRIE ENGLAND.

is also fond of himself. He likes to succeed. He likes
to be admired. He enjoys his food and drink. He likes
excitement and variety. He likes to laugh. He admires
beauty, and is pleased with music.

Now consider how these qualities of the body and the
mind may be acted upon by circumstances. We know
how the pure passion of love may be debased. We know
how men may become so brutalized that they will-ill-use
women ; that they will cease to love and cherish their
children. We know how a man grows selfish and cruel.
We know how he sinks to sottishness, to gluttony, to
torpid, savage boorislmess. We know we have with us
vast numbers of rich and poor, of respectable and disrep¬
utable liars and rogues and beasts and dastards. Is that
the fault of human nature ? Or is it the fault of the evil
influences that choke and poison human nature?

Gradgrind tells me that greed is the chief motor of the
human heart. It has been so called by generations of
shallow cynics and stupid dunces before him ; and, as he
never thinks for himself, he has never found out the error.
But let any man look about him and think of what he
sees, and I believe that he will agree with me that what
phrenologists call “ Love of approbation ” is a hundred¬
fold a stronger force than greed. What observer of life
will deny this ? Is it not plain to all when the eyes are
opened that the desire to get praise or admiration is a
stronger motive than the desire to get money ? Nay, this
desire to get wealth is only one out of a thousand conse¬
quences of the love of approbation. Only a miser loves
money for its own sake. The great bulk of our graspers
and grubbers value money for what it wilt bring. A few
and to a small extent because it brings them luxury, ease,
indulgence. A larger number, and to a greater extent,
because it saves them and theirs from the risks of penury

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129

and degradation. A great preponderance, and to the
widest extent, because it wins them the admiration, the
wonder, the envy, and the services of their fellows.

Greed is not the strongest passion of the human heart.
A much stronger passion is vanity. Yet I will not say
that vanity is the chief motor of human action. Is it
too harsh a word — “vanity”? Perhaps it is — in some
cases. Or perhaps it only sounds too harsh because often
enough vanity is intertwined with other and nobler feel¬
ings. One would not call Nelson vain. He had a strong
desire to win the love and admiration of his countrymen,
no doubt. But twisted in with the threads of that feeling
were the golden strands of patriotism, of courage, of duty.
We cannot say how much of a hero’s life is prompted by
his wish to be loved by his countrymen, and how much
by his own love for his countrymen. I am inclined to
think that wherever the desire for approbation can be
disentangled from other feelings, it may be fairly written
down as vanity.

And how far-stretched this vanity is — this love of ap¬
probation. From the Prime Minister, airing his elo¬
quence on the integrity of the Empire, or polishing up his
flimsy epigrams in his study, down through all the steps
of the social ladder — the ambassador in his garter, the
general in his plumed hat, the actor in his best part, and
the costermonger with pearl buttons on his trousers — all
are tinged with vanity, all have in them the desire, the
yearning, to be thought well of. This desire is stronger
than the thirst for pelf. Men who would scorn to be paid
will not scorn to be applauded. It is so strong that no
man nor woman is free from its influence. Indeed it
must be of this importance, for divested of the love
and respect of all our fellow creatures, life would cease
to be endurable. But life is quite endurable without
9

130

ME JR Tt IE ENGLAND.

wealth. And there are many people who do not desire
wealth.

Do you think the whole of the prosperous and wealthy
classes would resolutely oppose Socialism if they under¬
stood it? I don’t know about that. Do men seek or
hold wealth for its own sake, or for what it will buy ?
For what it will buy. And the tilings they suppose they
can buy with wealth, what are they? Admiration and
enjoyment. Now if you could convince men that admira¬
tion and enjoyment could not be bought with wealth, but
could be got without wealth, is it not possible that Mam¬
mon would lose his worshippers ?

As society is at present constituted nearly every man
gets as much money as he can. What are the ordinary
motives for this conduct ? Plutocrat says, “ I can make
a fortune out of the cotton trade, and why should I not ?
If I don’t make it some other man will ; and perhaps the
other man will be a rogue.” You see, men cannot trust
each other. Under the operation of unfettered individual
enterprise, life is a scramble. A man knows he could live
on less than ten thousand a year, and he knows that
multitudes are hungry. But if he foregoes the making
of a fortune it will not benefit the poor. Some other man
will seize on what he relinquishes, and the scramble will
go on. So men amass wealth because they think they
might as well do it as let another do it in their stead.

There is another thing. Plutocrat will tell you he has
a wife and family to provide for. He knows the world
too well to leave a widow and children to the tender
mercies of his brother graspers. It is every man for him¬
self and the weakest to the wall. So he will grind other
people to make money to prevent other people from grind¬
ing his children. He is right in a great measure. It is
his duty to provide for his wife and children. And under

MERRIE ENGLAND.

131

our present system of robbery and murder Dy individual
enterprise the widow and the orphan will find none to
pity and defend them — unless they can pay for value
received.

Again, in a commercial era and in a commercial nation
wealth is the reward of merit, the crown of honor and the
sign of virtue. Every man dreads failure. Wealth
stamps him with the hall-mark of success, and truly that
hall-mark is borne by some very spurious metals ; some
most evident Brummagem jewels.

It seems, then, that to deprive money-grubbing of its
power to mislead we must make great social changes.
We must assure men that in no case should their children
want. We must assure men that the possession of
wealth will not bring them honor. We must assure men
that justice will win them respect and not contempt, and
that the good man who forbears to fill his coffer at the
public expense need not fear to see some rascal render his
generosity abortive.

The Gradgrind supposes greed to be the ruling passion
because in the Society he knows most men strive to get
money. But why do they strive to get money ? There
are two chief motives. One the desire to provide for or
confer happiness upon children, on friends ; the other the
desire to purchase applause. But in the first case the
motive is not greed, but love ; and in the second case it is
not greed, but vanity. Only a miser covets money for its
own sake. Both love and vanity are stronger passions
than greed.

Will the desire of gain make progress? Suppose a
man to have a thirst for money and success, but no
genius. Can he for a prize of ten thousand pounds invent
a printing press? No. For though the impetus is there
the genius is absent. But suppose he has the genius and

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ME R JR IE ENGLAND.

no prize is offered! Can lie then invent the machine?
Yes. Because he has the genius to do it. We see, then,
that greed cannot invent machines, but genius can.

Now, if a prize be offered for a new machine, will a man
of no genius make it? No. lie will try for the sake of
the prize ; but he will fail for lack of brains. But no
prize being offered, will the man of genius, seeing a use
for a new machine, invent it? He will. History proves
that he will invent and does invent it, not only without
hope of gain, but even at risk of life and liberty.

It seems, then, that genius without mercenary incentives
will serve the world ; but that mercenary motives with¬
out genius will not.

In proof of which argument look back upon the lives
of such men as Galileo, Bruno, Newton, and indeed the
bulk of the explorers, scientists, philosophers, and mar¬
tyrs. Love of truth, love of knowledge, love of art, love
of fame, are all stronger motives than the love of gain,
which is the only human motive recognized by a system
of political economy supposed to be founded on human
nature.

It is the mistake of a blockhead to suppose that because
sometimes genius can make money therefore money can
always make genius.

For the sake of love, for the sake of duty, for the sake
of pity, for the sake of religion, and for the sake of truth,
men and women have resigned their bodies to the flames,
have laid their heads upon the block, have suffered im¬
prisonment, disgrace, and torture, and starvation. Who
will do as much for money ?

Money never had a martyr. In Mammon’s bible the
text of the Christian Bible is altered. It reads, “ What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own life?” Men wWifight for money; but they will

ME ERIE ENGLAND.

133

not die for it. Now millions have died for honor, for love,
for religion, for duty, for country, for fame. And how
then can any sensible person stand by the base and
brutish dogma that greed is the chief motor of the human
heart?

It seems an amazing thing to me, this persistence in
the belief that greed is the motive power of humanity.
The refutation of that error is forever under our noses.
You see how men strive at cricket ; you see the intense
effort and the fierce zeal which they display at football ;
you see men nearly kill themselves in boat races, on
cycling tracks and running grounds ; you know that these
men do all this without the hope of a single penny of
gain, and yet you tell me in the face of the powerful foot¬
ball combinations, and rowing clubs, and cricket clubs,
and with a quarter of a million of volunteers amongst
you, and with the records of Inkerman, and Lucknow,
and Marston Moor on your shelves, and with the walls of
the hospitals, and the life-boats of the Royal Humane
Society, and the spires of your churches, and the convents
of the Sisters of Charity, and the statues of your Crom¬
wells, and Wellingtons and Nelsons, and Cobdens, all
ready for you to knock your stupid heads against, that
the only reliable human motive is — the desire for gain.

Look about you and see what men do for gain, and
what for honor. Your volunteer force — does that exist
for gain? Your lifeboat service, again — is that worked
by the incentive of dirty dross ? What will not a soldier
do for a tiny bronze cross, not worth a crown piece?
What will a husband endure for his wife’s sake ? a father
for his children ? a fanatic for his religion ? But you do
not believe that Socialism is to destroy all love, and all
honor, and all duty and devotion, do you?

And now I have addressed you in a homely, simple

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M EERIE ENGLAND.

fashion, allow me to quote a passage or two from Carlyle,
and note how he in his magnificent language and with
lavish wealth of dazzling pictures, says what I have said
in my weaker and cruder way. Maybe, if you do not
think my words of weight, nor my name of force suffi¬
cient, you will respect the utterances of one of the greatest
thinkers and speakers England ever bred. I quote from
“ Past and Present ” : —

Let the Captains of industry retire into their own hearts and ask
solemnly if there is nothing but vulturous hunger for fine wines, valet
reputation, and gilt carriages discoverable there. Of hearts made by
the Almighty God I will not believe such a thing. Deep-hidden
under wretchedest God-forgetting cants, epicurisms, dead sea-apisins ;
forgotten as under foulest fat Lethe mud and weeds, there is yet, in
all hearts born unto this God’s world, a spark of the Godlike still
slumbering.

And again, my friend : —

Buccaneers, Choctaw Indians, whose supreme aim in fighting is
that they may get the scalps, the money — that they may amass scalps
and money — out of such comes no chivalry, and never will. Out of
such come only gore and wreck, infernal rage and misery, desperation
quenched in annihilation. Behold it, I bid thee ; behold there, and
consider. What is it that you have a hundred thousand pound bills
laid up in your strong room : a hundred scalps hung up in your wig¬
wam? I value not them or thee.

And yet again : —

Love of men cannot be bought by cash payment ; without love men
cannot endure to be together.

The incentive of gain !

MERR1E ENGLAND.

135

CHAPTER XV.

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF - ?

In Cceur-de-Lion’s day, it was not esteemed of absolute necessity to
put agreements between Christians in writing! Which if it were not
now, you know we might save a great deal of money, and discharge
some of our workmen round Temple Bar, as well as from Woolwich
Dockyards. — Raskin.

The quotation at the end of the last chapter brings us
naturally to the subject of competition.

Of all the many senseless and brutal theories which
practical men support, the most fatuous and bestial is the
theory of competition.

I use the word theory advisedly. You practical men
are fond of scoffing at all humane systems of thought or
government as mere “ theories.” It is one of the vainest
of your vanities to believe that you have no theories at all.

Why, John, you practical men have as many theories
as any Socialist. But the distinctive marks of all your
theories are their falsity, their folly, and their utter
imp rac ticabil i ty .

For instance, your practical man swears by political
economy. But it is by the political economy of the older
writers. It is the science of the men who were only
blundering over the construction of a rude and untried
theory. The later and wiser political economy you prac-
t’cal men either do not know or will not accept. You
resemble a railway director who should insist upon having
his locomotives made to the exact pattern of Stephenson’s

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

“Rocket.” Your economy isn’t up to date, John. You
cannot grasp a new idea — you are so practical.

One of the laws of your practical school is the law that
“ Society flourishes by the antagonism of its individuals.”

That is the theory of competition. It means that war
is better than peace, that a nation where every man tries
to get the better of his neighbor will be happier and
wealthier, more prosperous and more enlightened than a
nation where every man tries to help his neighbor.

Practical men are not usually blessed with nimble wits.
Allow me to offer you new readings of a few old proverbs
for use in competitive societ}^.

Union is weakness. There’s a nice terse motto for you.
It means just what is meant by the imbecile axiom that
“ Society flourishes by the antagonism of its individuals.”

A house divided against itself shall stand. How does
that suit your practical mind ? It is the same idea — the
idea upon which all opposition to Socialism is built up.

It is better to make one enemy than a hundred friends.

The greatest good of the smallest number.

Waste not have not.

Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall give
his wealth to princes.

Only a practical, hard-headed people could listen to such
propositions without laughing.

You are not good at theories, my practical friend. This
competitive theory is rank blockheadism. Allow me to
show you. I will test it first by theory, and then we will
see how it comes out in practice.

Suppose two men had to get a cart up a hill. Would
they get it up sooner if one tried to push it up whilst the
other tried to push it down ; or if both men tried to pull
it up ?

Suppose two men tried to catch a colt. Which would

MERRIE ENGLAND.

137

be the wiser plan, for each man to try to prevent the other
from catching it, or for each man to help the other to
catch it?

Suppose a captain had to bring a ship from New York
to Liverpool. Would he allow half-a-dozen men to fight
for the post of helmsman, or the whole crew to scramble
for the job of setting sail ?

No, he would set his crew in order, and send each man
to his proper post.

When there is a fire-panic in a theatre, how do people
lose their lives ? Is it not by all scrambling and fighting
to get through the narrow doors? And the result of such
a scramble. Is it not the blocking of the exit ? But you
must know very well that if the people kept cool, and went
out quickly, and in an orderly way, they would all escape.

John, if a hundred men had a hundred loaves of bread,
and if they piled them in a heap and fought for them, so
that some got more than they could eat, and some got
none, and some were trampled to death in the brutal
scuffle, that would be competition. Were it not for com¬
petition the hundred men would be all fed.

That, John, is the theory of competition. What do
you think of it ?

And now let us be practical. You have fallen into the
stupid error of supposing that competition is better than
co-operation, partly because you have never seen anything
but competition in practice, and partly because you have
not very clear sight, nor very clear brains.

You know that when a railway company, or salt com¬
pany, or a coal company, has a monopoly the public gets
worse served than when there are several companies in
competition with each other.

And you suppose that because competition beats monop¬
oly therefore competition is better than co-operation.

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MEBRIE ENGLAND.

But if you were not rather slow, John, you might have
noticed that co-operation and monopoly are not the same
things. Co-operation is the mutual helpfulness of all ;
monopoly is the plundering of the many by the few.

Give one man a monopoly of the coal mines and coals
would go up in price ; the miners’ wages would not.

But there is a great difference between making the
collieries the property of one man, and making them the
property of the whole people.

Now the Socialists propose to make them the property
of the whole people. And they say that if that were done
the price of coals would be the natural price. That is to
say, it would be the price of the proper keep of the
colliers.

Or, for you’ll possibly understand this better, being a
practical man, they say that the State could work the coal
mines better and more cheaply — with less waste of labor
— than could a private firm, or a number of firms in com¬
petition.

This is because a great deal of the time and energy of
the private firms under competition is spent, not in the
production and distributing of coals, but in the effort to
undersell and overreach each other.

And fortunately, we have one actual example of this
existing in the postal and telegraphic departments of the
State. For it is a fact which no one attempts to deny
that the post-office manages this branch of the national
business a great deal better than it ever was or ever could
be managed by a number of small firms in competition
with each other.

In an earlier chapter I gave you some idea of the waste
entailed by competition.

“ Elihu,” in his excellent pamphlet, “ Milk and Postage
Stamps,” deals very fully with this matter. He says : —

ME BRIE ENGLAND.

139

Taking soap as an example, it requires a purchaser of this com¬
modity to expend a shilling in obtaining sixpennyworth of it, the
additional sixpence being requisite to cover the cost of advertising,
travelling, etc. ; it requires him to expend Is. l^d. to obtain two penny¬
worth of pills for the same reason. For a sewing machine he must,
if spending £7 on it, part with £4 of this amount on account of un¬
necessary cost; and so on in the case of all widely-advertised articles.
In the price of less advertised commodities there is in like manner in¬
cluded as unnecessary cost a long string of middlemen’s profits and
expenses. It may be necessary to treat of these later, but for the pres¬
ent suffice it to say that in the price of goods as sold by retail the
margin of unnecessary cost ranges from 3d. to lOd. in the shilling, and
taking an average of one thing with another it may be safely stated
that one-lialf of the price paid is rendered necessary simply through
the foolish and inconvenient manner in which the business is carried
on.

Ancl then he goes on to show that whereas the soap manu¬
facturers are all for competition in the sale of the soap,
they will have no competition in the making of soap. As
thus : —

Outside his works competition appears quite natural, but inside he
will have no divided effort. If you were to suggest that he would
supply himself better and more cheaply with boxes by having three
joiners’ shops working independently of each other and under sepa¬
rate management, he would tell you that you were an ass, John, and
would not be far wrong.

Mr. C. Hart, in a pamphlet, one of the best I have seen,
called “Constitutional Socialism,” goes into the same
question. lie says : —

(a.) A and B are two builders, living ten miles apart. A gets a job
close to B’s house, and B a job close to A’s house. All the transport
of their ladders and planks is useless work, which, together with that of
other builders, necessitates the construction of many useless carts.
This reasoning applies to most merchants, canvassers, and shop¬
keepers (not all of them) who cross each other in every town, and
from one town and country to another, uselessly. How many useless
ships we have to build on this account!

(b) A country requires industrial and agricultural produce, inland
and foreign. Instead of consulting the statistics of consumption, and
of writing a few letters to ask for the required number of tons, which

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MERE IE ENGLAND.

would be sent to a central depot for distribution to the shops, wo
have thousands of merchants and brokers who each order many
separate parcels large and small, a small parcel requiring as much
correspondence, book-keeping, and drafts as a large one. Now, as
we could, under Socialism, order a hundred big parcels at once, and
thus issue one big draft instead of a thousand small ones, and do a
hundred times less correspondence and book-keeping than these
merchants, it follows that nearly all their work is useless, as well as
that of their countless dependents, direct and indirect, viz., those
who do the useless correspondence and book-keeping, who build the
useless offices, who manufacture the useless office furniture and
stationery, who construct and drive the useless carts for this furniture
and for all these small parcels, who build the useless banks for those
small drafts, who do more useless book-keeping there, who carry the
useless business letters through the post, who act as useless porters,
etc., etc. Socialism does not wish to abolish all these middlemen, but
only the useless ones.

Frank Fairman, in his “Socialism made Plain,” says: — ■

The immense extension of the telegraph system since it lias been
managed by the State, and no longer dependent upon the expectation
of immediate profit to capitalists is only an instance of what might be
done with regard to telephones, the electric light, railway communica¬
tion, and many other things ; for some of which the public, under the
existing system, are called upon to pay, in the shape of interest on
capital absolutely wasted in jobbery, promotion money, Parliamentary
conflicts, and what is called insurance against risk of loss, as much as
it would have cost to do the entire work themselves.

Nor are this increase of cost and waste of labor the
only evils of the competitive system. There is also the
enormous amount of profit made by the private firms to
be considered.

This profit comes out of the pockets of the workers and
goes into the pockets of the idlers. And by the idlers it
is wasted, as I will show you in a future chapter.

But there is another very serious evil due to competi¬
tion. Please to read the following extract from Mr.
IT. M. Hyndman’s pamphlet, “Socialism and Slavery ”

To take a single but very important instance of the way in which our
present system works ruin all round. Industrial crises occur more

ME Li HIE ENGLAND.

141

and more frequently in each successive generation. The increasing
powers of machinery, the greater facility of transport and communica¬
tion, do but serve to make matters worse for the mass of the workers
in all countries, insomuch that the uncertainty of employment is
greatly increased by these recurring crises, apart from the danger of
the workers being driven out on to the streets by the introduction of
new labor-saving machines. But these crises arise from the very
nature of our capitalist system of production. Thus, when a period
of depression comes to an end, orders flow in from home and foreign
customer’s ; each manufacturer is anxious to take advantage of the
rising tide of prosperity, and produces as much as he can, without
any consultation with his fellows or any regard for the future : there
is a great demand for laborers in the factories, workshops, shipyards,
and mines ; prices rise all along the line, speculation is rampant; new
machines are introduced to economize labor and increase production.
All the work is being done by the most thorough social organization
and for manifestly social purposes ; the workers are, as it were,
dovetailed into one another by that social and mechanical division of
labor, as well as by the increasing scale of factory industry. But
they have no control whatever over their products when finished.
The exchange is carried on solely for the profit of the employing class,
who themselves are compelled to compete against one another at high
pressure in order to keep their places. Thus a glut follows, and then
a depression of trade, when millions of men are out of work all over
the world, though ready to give their useful labor in return for food ;
and the capitalists are unable to employ them because the glut
which they themselves have created prevents production at a profit.

Competition, it thus appears, raises the price of com¬
modities, lowers the rate of wages, and throws vast
numbers of men out of work.

Another evil of the competitive system is the milking
of new ideas by the capitalist. Under competition a new
invention is a “ trade secret,” and is worked for the benefit
of one firm.

Browii gets hold of a new method of cutting screws
which enables him to dispense with half the labor, lie
conceals this from Jones and Robinson and uses it to
undersell them. Let us trace the action of such an inven¬
tion under competition and under Socialism.

Suppose that labor equals 50 per cent, of the cost of

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

making the screws, and that the new process saves half the
labor. That gives Brown a profit of 25 per cent, more
than Jones and Robinson. Now, Brown first of all dis¬
charges half his men, and then lowers the price of his
screws 10 per cent. The results of these operations
are : —

1*. The public get their screws 10 per cent,
cheaper.

2. Brown makes 15 per cent, more profit.

3. Jones and Robinson lose their trade.

4. Half of Brown’s men are out of employment.

5. If Brown can ruin Jones and Robinson and
take all their trade, then he will throw half of their
men out of employment, and may even raise the
price of screws again, and so take all the advantage
of the invention.

And very likely Brown has bought this invention from
some poor man for a couple of hundred dollars.

Nor does the evil end here. I have it on good authority
that in some trades the capitalists have a fund for the
purpose of ruining inventors. This is done by a system
of lawsuits and appeals which make it impossible for a
man to work his invention unless he has a great deal of
money. This kind of villainy is protected by the libel
laws. I will therefore leave you to find out the facts for
yourself.

But now consider the result of our new screw-cutting
process under Socialism.

A workman invents a new process. He is rewarded by
a medal and the naming of the process after its inventor,
and the invention becomes the property of the State.

What are the effects ? Screws can be made 25 per cent,
more cheaply. Who gets the advantage of that?

The people get> the advantage of it. You may

MERRIE ENGLAND.

143

1. Reduce the hours of labor in the screw trade
by one half, or

2. Send half the screw-cutters to some other work,
as farming.

But in either case the people will reap the benefit. For
either hours of work will be shorter, or more wealth will
be poured into the common store as a consequence of every
new invention.

Doubtless some of your political, hard-headed, practical
friends will affect to be shocked at the idea that the in¬
ventor of our new process gets “ no more substantial
reward ” then a medal and a name. But remember one
or two things.

1. The inventor has, already, as much of all sub¬
stantial things as he requires.

2. That he could not spend money if he got it.

3. That he is under no obligation to think of the
future, as he and his wife and children are sure of
the care of the State.

Besides, you may remind your practical friends that the
heroes of the life-boats, the hospitals, the coal mines, and
the battle-field seldom get so much as a medal or a name.

The heroes who defended Rorke’s Drift were rewarded
by a grant to each man of a pair of trousers ; the heroes
of the glorious charge at Balaclava have many of them
died in the workhouse.

One other instance of the bad effects of competition,
and I have done with the subject.

On the 17th of June, 1893, the Clarion quoted from
The New Nation the following paragraph : —

“ As soon as I get up a good thing, say in chocolate,” says a merchant,
“ some rival will imitate it in quality and sell it at a lower rate. To hold
my own I’ve to cut his price ; but as I can’t do that and make a profit I must
adulterate the article a little. He knows the dodge, and he will do the
same thing. So we go, cutting at each other, until both of our articles are

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

so cheap and poor that nobody will buy them. Then I start the pure goods
again under another name, and the whole circus has to bo gone over
again.”

Every man who knows anything of trade knows how
general is the knavish practice of adulteration. As a
Lancashire man you will need no lecture on the evils of
calico-sizing. Now, all adulteration is directly due to
competition. Do you doubt it ? Allow me to prove my
statement by quoting from a speech by John Bright.
John Bright was a great apostle of grad-grindery. He
was a champion of competition, an opponent of the
Factory Acts and trade unionism; and in the speech to
which I allude he intended to excuse adulteration, and he
said : —

Adulteration is only another form of competition.

Could anything be clearer ? Could any irony, or any
argument, or any invective of a Socialist, wound competi¬
tion so deeply as does this maladroit chance-blow of its
champion, John Bright ?

I notice, Mr. Smith, that there is a statue of John
Bright in the Town Hall Square of Manchester. That
statue is well placed. John Bright was the natural hero
of the cotton age. In our Merrie England we shall most
likely prefer to put up memorials to men like John Ruskin
and Thomas Carlyle.

ME HE IE ENGLAND.

145

i

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.

After a momentary silence spake

Some vessel of a more ungainly make ;

They sneer at me for leaning all awry :

What! did the hand then of the Potter shake?

Omar Khayyam.

One of the favorite arguments of the Gradgrinds in
support of competition is the theory of the Survival of
the Fittest.

They say that those who fail, fail because they are not
fitted to succeed. They say that those who succeed,
succeed because they are “ fit.” They say it is the law of
nature that the weakest shall go to the wall, and to the wall
with them — and no quarter.

The slumites live in the slums because they are unfit to
live anywhere else. The Duke of Marlborough lived in a
palace because the intellectual and moral superiority of
such a man naturally forced him into a palace.

Burns was a ploughman ; Bunyan was a tinker ; Lord
Chesterfield was a peer. The composer of the popular
waltz, “ The Masher’s Dream,” makes ten thousand a year,
and lives in a mansion. Richard Jefferies and James
Thomson died poor and neglected.

Jay Gould had boundless wealth and tremendous power.
Walt Whitman had a modest competence, and no power
at all. Or, as the most vivid example I can give you of the
great law of the survival of the fittest, let me remind you

io

146

MERRIE ENGLAND.

that Brigham Young was a prophet and a ruler, wealthy
and honored ; and that Christ lived a mendicant preacher,
and died the death of a felon.

And all these things are justified by the glorious law
that the fittest shall survive.

But let me give you my own explanation of the law as
to the survival of the fittest. Of two plants or animals,
that one will survive which is fittest to endure the
conditions in which both exist. The question of which
man shall survive depends upon the conditions under
which the men shall struggle for survival. .

According to the law of nature the man who is best
suited by the conditions of the country and the society he
lives in will be best fitted to succeed.

In a nation of marauders, then, who live by spoliation
and the sword, the fittest to survive would be a different
type of man from him who gets first place in a nation of
traders, where fierceness and strength of arm are less
called for than tenacity and clearness of head.

It thus appears that when we say our poor are poor
because they are not fitted to gain wealth, we mean that
they are not “ fit ” to gain wealth under the conditions
of life now existing. But under different conditions of
life they might succeed.

If, then, the present conditions of life are right, the poor
are wrong ; but if the present conditions of life are not
right, the poor are wronged '.

Therefore, it seems that this theory of the Survival of
the Fittest is no answer to our indictment against Society.
It proves nothing except that if the poor are unworthy
they are unworthy. The question are they unworthy, or
is it the arrangement of Society that is unworthy, has
still to be answered.

One condition of Society enables one kind of man to

MERRIE ENGLAND.

147

succeed. Another condition of Society enables another
kind of man to succeed. Now would you say that was
the best condition of society that gave to the lowest type
of humanity the pre-eminence? Or would you say that
was the best condition of society that gave the highest
type of humanity the pre-eminence ?

Granting that the noblest is really the most proper to
survive, is it not desirable that the conditions of society
should be so moulded and arranged that noble qualities
shall have full play and base qualities be kept in check ?
I think that is clear enough, and I now ask you to consider
whether society, as it is at present constituted, enables the
law of the Survival of the Fittest to work for evil or for
good.

For hundreds of ages we have been imprisoning, murder¬
ing, prosecuting, and starving our Brunos, our Pauls, our
Socrates, our Raleighs, our Joans of Arc, and have heaped
rewards and honors on our Alexanders, our Bonapartes,
our Jay Goulds, our Rothschilds. Are we to go on for¬
ever in the workship of usury and slaughter and intrigue ?
Are we still to make the basest the fittest to survive ? To
bless power above benevolence? Shall we never have
done admiring and obeying our Brigham Youngs, nor
crucifying our Christs, nor scorning those who follow Him,
and such as He ?

No sensible man would attempt to oppose a law of
nature. All natural laws are right. JVo natural law can
be resisted. But before we give to any law implicit obedi¬
ence we shall be wise to examine its credentials. Natural
laws we must obey. But don’t let us mistake the hasty
deductions of erring men for the unchanging and trium¬
phant laws of Nature. Let us begin, in this case, by ask¬
ing whether the law of prey, which seems to be a natural
and inevitable statute among the brutes, has any right of

148

M EBB IE ENGLAND.

jurisdiction in the courts of humanity. Is there any dif¬
ference between man and the brutes ? If there is a dif¬
ference, in what does it consist ?

We need not get into a subtle investigation on this
matter. It is sufficient to use common terms, and say
that man has intellect ; animals only instinct. Consider
the consequences of this difference. We have spoken
and written language, which beasts have not. We have
imagination, which beasts have not. We have memory,
history, sciences, religions, which beasts have not. And
we have intellectual progress, which beasts have not. I
might go a great deal deeper into this matter, but I want
to keep to plain speech and simple issues. Man has
reason ; beasts have not.

Now reason is a natural thing in man. Nature gave
him reason, because reason is necessary to the working
out of his development, and I mean to say that by reason
we are to be guided, and not by the law of prey, which is
a natural check and balance put upon unreasoning creat¬
ures. By how much a man’s reason excels a brute’s
instincts is the man better than the brute. By how much
one man’s reason excels that of his fellows is he better
than they. By how much any policy of human affairs is
more reasonable than another policy is it best fitted to
survive.

It seems, then, that the law of the Survival of the Fit¬
test does apply to mankind ; but it works with them in a
manner different to that in which it works with the brutes.
Well, I say that our Gradgrinds apply a natural law in
an unnatural manner. That they would rule mankind by
brutal methods.

Before we go any further with this theory of the Sur¬
vival of the Fittest, let me ask you one question. Will
you tell me, Mr. Smith, who are the fittest to survive ? A

ME B It IE ENGLAND,

149

great deal depends upon our answer to that question. All
wealth is got by plunder. It' instead of making laws to
stop the depredations of the sweater we repealed the laws
for the repression of the garrotter, we should soon fall
into anarchy — that is, into a state of savagery, such as is
understood by the word anarchy. The race to the swift.
The battle to the strong. The weak to the wall. The
vanquished to the sword. A perfect realization of the
Survival of the Fittest. Then the man with the most
strength and ferocity would take by force of arms the
goods of the weak and timid — and their lives. Which all
of us would call sheer plunder. But commercialism is
just a war of wits — a gambling or fighting with weapons
of parchment and the like, and really plunder by force of
cunning instead of by force of arms. And both these forms
of plunder are forms in which the baser intellect and the
more brutal physique will always be successful. In per¬
sonal conflict, Socrates would be no match for J. L.
Sullivan ; in commerce, Jesus Christ would be exploited
by Jay Gould — as he was , in fact, by Judas.

For the Gradgrinds to invoke the laws of Nature is
odd. Our “ Survival-of-the-Fittest ” men declare their
dependence on the laws of Nature, and when any one sug¬
gests a change in English laws and customs for the sake
of the poor and heavy-laden, these barbarian ranters an¬
swer, “Oh, no. You must not meddle with the laws of
Nature. Nature’s processes are inevitable, and cannot be
altered by acts of Parliament.” But we have laws, and
these wiseacres would keep those laws. If we suggested
that no laws should be, they would call us anarchists.
But what shall we call them who cry out that natural
law is the only law, and yet insist upon the necessity for
human laws as well ?

Is there any natural obstacle to the establishment of

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

a community on just terms ? Is there any known law of
nature that denies bread to the industrious and forces
wealth upon the idle ? If a natural law makes waste and
want imperative, what is that law ? Tell me, that I may
know it? Natural law as far as I do know it is against
this unjust distribution. Natural law punishes gluttony,
and as ruthlessly punishes privation. Nature racks the
gourmand and the sluggard with gout, or disfigures him
with dropsy, and the starveling and the unresting drudge
she visits with consumption and with pestilence. She
strikes the miser with a Midas curse — turning his bowels
to gold, and she brands the drunkard, the libertine,
and the brawler with the mark of the beast. Nature
everywhere ordains temperance. How, then, can wealth
or indulgences be justified in her name. How can we
say that the millions of poor slain by unnatural condi¬
tions of life are the victims of nature’s laws ?

To whose interest is it that the poor should suffer ?
Do their sorrow and travail confer an atom of benefit on
any of God’s creatures? Injustice is a thing accursed.
It does not, never did, and never will confer a benefit on
any man. The man who does an injustice suffers for it
in his moral nature. He gains nothing, though he makes
wealth. For no man can use more than he needs, and
Justice would give all men that. The men to whom an
injustice is done suffer, and be they many or few, Society
suffers because of their suffering.

The Survival of the Fittest is a question of conditions.
It can have no great power to-day. The Survival of the
Fittest is another name for Anarchy, Our Society is one
bound by law. The unfettered “ right of individual en¬
terprise ” is anarchy. And it is bad. It is bad because
in a state of social warfare, warfare to extermination
point, the basest and the vilest have the advantage, for

MERE IE ENGLAND. 151

the vile man and the base will fight with less ruth and
fewer scruples

So much for the survival of the fittest. So much for
Laissez Faire. The man who accepts the Laissez Faire
doctrine would allow his garden to run wild, so that the
roses might fight it out with the weeds and the fittest
might survive.

152

ME1UUE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XVII.

SOCIALISM AND PROGRESS.

Your present system of education is to get a rascal of an architect to
order a rascal of a clerk-of-the-works to order a parcel of rascally brick¬
layers to build you a bestially stupid building in the middle of the town,
poisoned with gas, and with an iron floor which will drop you all through
it some frosty evening ; wherein you will bring a puppet of a cockney
lecturer in a dress coat and a white tie, to tell you smugly there’s no God,
and how many messes he can make of a lump of sugar. — Ruskin.

Another stock argument against Socialism is the as¬
sertion that it would destroy all intellectual progress.
Here is a quotation from an article by the late Charles
Bradlaugh : —

I object to Socialism because it would destroy the incentives which have
produced, amongst other things, the “ clever ” men who serve society in
various fashions, as doctors, engineers, architects, and teachers. I am in¬
clined to doubt whether, if the enormous army of Socialist officials were
rewarded at the like rate with the scavenger and*the ploughman, the temp¬
tation on them might not be very great to help themselves to extra recom¬
pense from the national stores.

The first sentence in this passage displays a singular
misconception of human nature ; the second a grotesque
misconception of Socialism.

We will dispose of the second sentence first. You will
observe that Mr. Bradlaugh spoke of “ the enormous army
of Socialist officials.” He seems to have supposed, as so
many suppose, that under Socialism we should be over¬
run with officials. You will find the same comical blun¬
der in Richter’s book.

MERE IE ENGLAND.

153

No>w the fact is that under Socialism there would be
as f( ;w officials, and as many workers, as possible. I
don* i think you will find the officials in the Post Office
more numerous than in any ordinary business house.
Bid the surprising part of it is that a really shrewd man
like Mr. Bradlaugh should have failed to notice the enor¬
mous number of officials, the useless officials, too, who
burden every department of trade under competition.

For what are all the clerks, travellers, agents, canvassers,
salesmen, managers, capitalists, and other costly and need¬
less people but an “ enormous army ” of officials? Just
glance back at the chapter on Competition, and then con¬
sider whether Socialism, however badly managed, could
possibly add to the number of overpaid and unnecessary
noi ^producers.

Then Mr. Bradlaugh was terribly shocked by the idea
that a doctor should be paid at the same rate as a scaven¬
ger. This is chiefly due to two misconceptions of Mr.
Bradlaugh’s. First of all, he had been so used to the rec¬
ognized money standard of honor that he didn’t seem
able to realize that a man might, under Socialism, be hon¬
ored more for what he was, or for what he did, than for
what he got. Secondly, he was so used to seeing such
men as scavengers overworked, underpaid, and generally
despised that it did not occur to him as possible that un¬
der Socialism every worker would be treated justly and
respected as a man. But turn the idea the other way
round, and you can reply to Mr. Bradlaugh’s objection
that it will be a decidedly good society for the average
man where the scavenger or ploughman is as well paid
as the doctor or the engineer. However, I shall have
more to say about our friend the scavenger in a future
chapter.

Another amusing blunder of Mr. Bradlaugh’s is the

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MERBIE ENGLAND.

idea that if an official got no more pay than a scavenger
he would turn thief and rob the public stores.

That seems to imply that the “ clever ” men, the men
who Mr. Bradlaugh evidently regarded as the salt of t,he
earth, are not, in his opinion, very honest. If an under¬
paid clerk in these times, robs his employer he is sent to
prison— as a rogue. We hear nothing about the in just ce
of society or the folly of competition in paying him no
more than a scavenger.

But, observe, once more, that it could only be under
Ideal Socialism that the official and the scavenger woi ild
be equally paid. Therefore, there would be nothing for
the official to steal but food or clothing, and as every man
would have as much of those as he needed for the askiiug,
I don’t see what an official would gain by stealing more.

No. The error arises, once more, from a misconception
of Socialism. The fact is our critics will keep supposin g
that under Socialism the workers would be as badly
treated and as badly rewarded as they are now.

Let us turn, then, to Mr. Bradlaugh’s first sentence.
Socialism, he says, “ would destroy the incentives whic h
f have produced the clever men who serve society.” Thi s
Vis the old story about the incentive of gain. It come s
?very curiously from the mouth of Mr. Bradlaugh. Very
curiously indeed.

Mr. Bradlaugh was a clever man, and he had worked
very hard. Was gain his incentive? No one who know 3
any thing of his life will suppose so for a moment. It is :a
marvellous thing. Here we had a man who had fought ;i
bitter, a terrible, and uphill battle all his life long fo r
j principle , a man who was faithful unto death, and who
died poor and embarrassed, and we find him objecting to
Socialism because it would remove the incentive of gain.

But there is the statement, and it is a common one,.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

155

Mr. Morley repeats it. Mr. Morley is convinced that if
existence were no longer a sordid struggle for money the
genius of the people would die out, and we should sink
into barbarism, and retain nothing but the bare neces¬
saries of life.

Well, this is what I call comic. Mr. Morley seems
satisfied with things as they are. What do his words
assume? They assume : —

1. That the greatest and noblest of the race are
actuated by avarice. Which is not true.

2. That the greatest and noblest of the race secure
the most iceatlh. Which is not true.

3. That the people are at present in the enjoyment
of more than the necessaries of life. Which is
not true.

4. That the people are at present in the enjoyment
of civilization and refinement. Which is not true.

5. That Socialism would discourage genius and
patriotism. Which is not true.

6. That Socialism would encourage idleness.
Whichis not true.

I will take these six errors in their order, and refute
them.

The first is the assertion that if a clever man were not
paid higher icages than a manual laborer, he would refuse
to devote his talents to the service of society.

Now, John, out of their own mouths shall these men be
condemned.

Have you ever read any of the speeches and articles on
the Payment of Members of Parliament? You have.
What is the stock argument used against the payment of
members ?

It is the argument that to pay members would be to
lower the tone and impair the quality of the House of

156

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Commons. It is the argument that men of talent will serve
the nation better for honor than for money !

I think that here I have them on the hip. This argu¬
ment is used by the same men who tell us that Socialism
would degrade the nation by abolishing the incentive of
gain.

With how little wisdom is the world governed. What
do you think of the morality, what do you think of the
intelligence, what do you think of the knowledge of these
“practical statesmen,” these men you cheer and vote
for ?

They tell you one day that unless you pay clever men
big wages, they will cease to work.

They tell you another day that if you pay clever men
at all, they will cease to work.

They declare first of all that it is only the lust after
money that makes men great.

They declare next that money is such a vile thing that
if you pay members of Parliament you will ruin the
country, because only greedy adventurers will work for
money.

Is the swinish lust for wealth the one motive power of
all clever men, except our members of Parliament?

What think you is the chief food of genius ? Does the
prospect of wealth inspire Hamlets or Laocoons, and
steam-engines, and printing-presses ? The true artist,
the man to whom all creative wTork is due, is mainly
inspired, sustained, and rewarded by a love of his art.
Milton wrote “ Paradise Lost ” for $40. Can greed produce
a poem like it ? Many improvements in machinery are
made by workmen. Often they get no profit. Sometimes
the master patents the improvement, pays the drudge a
few shillings* a week for his ideas, and makes thousands.
Shall we measure men’s brains like corn, or gauge the

MERRIE ENGLAND.

157

pressure and the power of fiery passions and quenchless
faiths by the horse-power. All the forces of all the kings
of the earth cannot make one brave man turn on his heel ;
all the wealth of the nations cannot buy one pure soul ;
all the fools in a big city cannot conquer one strong brain ;
all the drilled and crammed dunces that political economy
and hide-bound school systems can band together cannot
advance the cause of knowledge or liberty one inch.

Was it greed made Socrates expound philosophy, or
Shakespeare write plays? Was it competition made
Watt invent the steam-engine, or Davy the safety-lamp?
Was it greed that abolished slavery? Was it greed
made Darwin devote his life to science? Was it greed
that unfolded the secrets of astronomy, of geology, and
of other important facts of nature ? Or did greed give
us musical notation, the printing press, the pictures of
Turner and Raphael, the poems of Spenser, and the liber¬
ties of the English Constitution ?

The true artist : He to whom all creative work is due
is mainly inspired, sustained, and rewarded by a love of
his art. He will take money, for he must live. He will
take money, for money is the badge of victory. But with
or without money, and with or without praise, he will
worship the beloved mistress, art. He calls his wealthy
patrons Philistines, and in his soul despises them.

This paltry plea about pay ! Yet, even if we admit
that “ pay ” is the one prize and the one incentive of lift1,
it would seem as though the men of “ ability ” are not the
men who get the most of it. It may seem a sad thing
that Darwin should get no more “ pay ” than the “ clod ”
who breaks stones. But there are “clods” who break
backs and hearts instead of stones, who get paid more
than the men of ability in question. For instance, Jay
Gould the “ financier ” got more “ pay ” and held more

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

wealth than Gladstone, and Carlyle, and Darwin, and
Koch, and Galileo, and Columbus, and Cromwell, and
Caxton, and Stephenson, and Washington, and Raphael,
and Mozart, and Shakespeare, and Socrates, and Jesus
Christ ever got amongst them. So perfect is the present
system of “pay.”

Are the best men of to-day the best paid ? Are the
most useful men the best paid ? Are the most industrious
men, the wealthiest ? Do the noblest and the cleverest
men work for gain? Do they get rich? Do the great
mass of the laboring classes work for gain ? Do they get
rich? Did the love of gain ever make a hero or a
martyr? Did it ever win a battle? Will a man do most
for loveor for money, for honor or for money, for duty or
for money ? Having no money, does a genius become a
fool? Having much money does a fool become a genius?
Did any nation, loving money, ever become great; or,
gaining riches and luxury, ever remain great? It has
been written that : —

Romans in Rome’s quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,

Nor child, nor. wife, nor limb, nor life,

In the good days of old.

But it has never been written nor said nor known of
any but the vilest and meanest savages that they would
sell their country or their wives or their children or their
faiths for money.

Is there any community as united and as effective as a
family ? The family is the soundest, the strongest, and
the happiest kind of society, and next to that is the tribe
of families. And why ? Because all the relations of
family life are carried on in direct opposition to the prin¬
ciples of political economy and the survival of the fittest.
A family is bound by ties of love and mutual helpfulness.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

159

The weakly child is not destroyed ; it is cherished with

extremest tenderness and care. The rule is vested in the

%

parents, and not knocked down to the highest bidder.
The brothers do not undersell each other. The women
are better treated than the men, not worse, as in the fac¬
tories, and each member of the family receives an equal
share of the common wealth.

But let us return to th<i article of Mr. Bradlaugh.
Here is another statement : —

To me, I avow, it does seem that Sir James Paget or the editor of a news¬
paper is more valuable than the street-sweeper, that the effort necessary
to become a clever doctor or successful journalist is greater than that
necessary for an average stone-breaker. Sir Charles Russell, Mr. Burne-
Jones, or Mr. Wm. Black may, it appears to me, have each been re¬
quired to devote years of preliminary study and ardent application which
are not required from the omnibus conductor or letter-carrier.

Here is the same idea, that services and labor can be
recompensed by “ pay.” The same idea that because one
man can do more or better than another he should have
more money ; the same unaccountable inability to see
that all the money the earth contains can never buy a
man more than the necessaries of life, for a man has but
one body to clothe, but one stomach to feed, but one head
to rest upon a pillow.

Now, if every man had enough, would it not be a pitiful
spectacle to see the salt of the earth — the men of knowl¬
edge and ability — whining for more ?

Why should a clever man want more than an average
worker ? If the workman’s pay is enough for his wants—
and that “ought” to be — why should an artist have
more? The workman having enough, should the artist
have more than enough? He does not need it. He can¬
not use it. He is already more blessed than the workman,
for his talent is a boundless source of pleasure to him,
and his work is a gratification and not a task. A really

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ME ERIE ENGLAND.

great-souled man would spurn such a guerdon for his
victory. In a healthy state of human feeling, to offer a
hero money and vain titles 'would affront him as surely
as offering a man a sugar-stick to eat or a baby’s rattle
to play with. Virtue is its own reward. The artist’s
reward is his success ; his honor is his works. The true
hero asks for service, not for pay. “IchDien”is the
real Prince’s motto all the world over. I’ll have to look
up a list of biographies, so that Smith and Co. may know
what a hero is. They are rather scarce now. And it is
curious that at a time when the demand for a hero is
very pressing, the supply has failed. That now, when
heroes could have more gold and more promotion than
were ever showered on them before, they do seem strangely
loth to show themselves. I cannot explain this, unless by
supposing that heroes are not ruled by the law of supply
and demand, and do not much covet riches or places in
the House of Peers.

But let us take some homely illustrations of my con¬
tention that merit does not depend upon pay.

You know something about cricket. Take the Notts
team. You will find that all the professionals are paid
at the same rate. But you will not find them all equally
good. Shrewsbury is the best bat in the team. lie gets
no mor q pay than a less expert man. But does that fact
prevent any one of us from recognizing his superior
power? Do you not see that it is the same in all profes¬
sions? I daresay Mr. Sims makes more money than
Shakespeare would make now. But we never make a
mistake as to which of the two stands at the head of his
art. John L. Sullivan, the boxer, got, I am told, $2,500 a
week for acting. But even if that be more than Mr.
Irving would get, it does not follow that any man can
believe Sullivan to be the better actor.

A ERR IE ENGLAND.

161

Homely illustration No. 2 : That a man will do his best
even when he gets no more pay than another of his trade
less clever than himself. Here again we take Shrewsbury
as an example. Put him into the Players’ eleven. He
will get no more money than any other batsman. Yet he
is the best batsman. But will he, therefore, not try to
score? Ask him. Nee him. Yes; 1 know what you will
say. If he does not do his best he will be thrown out,
and then he will get no money. But Mr. Stoddard tries
as hard as Shrewsbury, and he gets no money. And you
will find in the Gentlemen and Players’ matches that the
Gentlemen are as keen and as anxious to win as are the
Players. And you will always find that the man who
• works or fights for love, or honor, or duty, or fame, will
work harder and fight more fiercely and bravely than the
man who fights for pay. Because the former has his
heart in the work and the latter has not.

And notice another very curious thing about Mr. Brad-
laugh’s paragraph.

He tells us that Sir Charles Russell and Mr. William
Black have been required to devote years of preliminary
study to their trades. He suggests, therefore, that now
they shall be paid extra wages. Why?

Is not all wealth created by labor ? How did Messrs.
Black and Russell live during their period of education ?
Who kept them ?

They were kept by the workers, and are, therefore, in
debt to the workers, and not the workers to them. But
of this more anon.

We may now go back to Mr. Morley. Of his six errors,
I have answered three. We will take Nos. 3 and 4 to¬
gether. They imply that the people are at present in the
enjoyment of the necessaries of life.

What about the unemployed ? What about pauperism ?

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

What about sweating ? What about the payment of un¬
skilled labor? What about female labor ? What about
the railway workers, the canal workers, the chemical
workers, the costermongers, the dockers, the chain and
nail makers, the agricultural laborers ? What about the
slums? Does Mr. Morley ever read any Blue Books?
Does he know anything about the condition of this coun¬
try ? If he does, he makes very bad use of the knowledge.
Talk about a barbarous society in which men should have
but the necessaries of life. Just cast your eye over this
brief extract from Dr. Russell’s pamphlet on life in one
room :

Of the inhabitants of Glasgow, 25 per cent, lire in houses of one
apartment. ... No less than 14 per cent, of the one-roomed houses,
aud 27 per cent, of the two-roomed houses, contain lodgers — strange men
and women, mixed up with husbands, and wives, and children, within the
four walls of small rooms. . . . There are thousands of these houses
which contain five, six, and seven inmates, and hundreds which are in¬
habited by from eight to thirteen. Of all the children who die in Glasgow
before they complete their fifth year, 32 per cent., die in houses of one
apartment, and not 2 per cent, in houses of five apartments and upwards
. . . . From beginning to rapid ending, the lives of these children are

short parts in a wretched tragedy. ... I can only venture to lift a
corner of the curtain which veils the life which is lived in these houses.
It is impossible to show you more.

That is official testimony, and Mr. Morley talks about
“ necessaries ” of life. Do you count fresh air, health,
decency, and cleanliness as necessaries ? If you do, what
say you to the barbarism of Glasgow, of Liverpool, of
London, and of Manchester? Come, will you tell me how
Socialism is going to ruin Ancoats, or lower the moral
standard of Whitechapel, or debase the ideal of Black
Country life ? It will be time enough for our statesmen
to despise the “ necessaries of life ” when they have made
it possible for the people to get them.

Error No. 6, that Socialism would encourage laziness, I
shall deal with in a future chapter.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

163

CHAPTER XVIII.

SOCIALISM AND SLAVERY.

Then let us be thankful to Jules
And Bil for the way they belia\$d,

For though wages be small
There’s employment for all,

And “the freedom of contract” is saved.

Thus free competition remains,

A blessing to England and France ;

And the Communist schemes
Are rejected as dreams,

So that every rogue has a chance.

— The Clarion.

The common misconceptions of Socialism are most per¬
verse and foolish. Mr. Herbert Spencer wrote an article
called “ The Coming Slavery.” I think he is responsible
for the much-quoted opinion that Socialism would result
in a more odious form of slavery than any the world has
yet known.

Clearly there are two things which Mr. Herbert Spen¬
cer, like most of our critics, has failed to understand.
One of these things is Socialism ; the other is the condi¬
tion of existing society.

I deny that Socialism would result in any form of
slavery at all ; and I assert that a most odious form of
slavery exists at present in this so-called free country.
Let us see.

First as to Socialism. Mr. Spencer’s idea appears to be
that under Socialism the State would compel men to work

164

ME ERIE ENGLAND.

against their will, or to work at occupations uncongenial
to them.

This is a mistake. The State would not compel any
man to work. It would only enable all men to work, and
to live in peace and comfort by their labor.

If a man did not choose to work he would not be coerced.
He could either do his fair share of the work of the com¬
munity in return for his fair share of the wealth, or he
could decline to work.

But if he declimal to work he would certainly have to
starve, or to leave the State.

Now I want to point out to you, before I go any further,
that as things are at present some men live luxuriously
and do no work, many men do a great deal of work and
live wretchedly, and nearly three-quarters of a million of
men who are willing to work can get no work to do.

To hear people talk about slavery under Socialism, you
would suppose we had freedom now. Robert Ingersoll
says : —

Some of the best and purest of our race have advocated what is known
as Socialism. . . . Socialism seems to me to be one of the worst pos¬
sible forms of slavery. . . . Nothing would so utterly paralyze all the

forces, all the splendid ambitions and aspirations that tend now to the
civilization of man . Socialism destroys the family and sacri¬

fices the liberties of all. If the Government is to provide work it must de¬
cide for the worker what he must do, etc. Is it possible to conceive of a
despotism beyond this ? The human race cannot afford to exchange its
liberty for any possible comfort.

The human race cannot afford to exchange its liberty
for any possible comfort ! But the human race has not
got any liberty to exchange. The human race, at least
the great majority, are slaves.

But ask yourself, what liberty of choice is left to you.

Suppose you are out of work, can you have work for
the asking? No. But under Socialism you could always

MERRIE ENGLAND.

165

have work. Is that a proof of slavery ? Suppose under
Socialism you were told that you must work or starve !
Would that be any more despotic treatment than the
treatment you get now? Tell your present employers
that you do not wish to work, and see what the alterna¬
tive will be. You must work or starve now. The differ¬
ence between present conditions and the conditions of
Socialism, are that you now work long hours for a bare
existence, whereas, in a Socialistic State you would work
short hours for a life of honor and comfort.

The Socialistic State would not compel any man to work ;
it would prevent him from living on the work of others.
It would organize the industries, production and distribu¬
tion of the community, and would then say to the citizen :
“If you would enjoy the benefits and share the wealth of
this commonwealth you must also obey the laws and share
the labor.” Surely that is just. But in no case can it be
twisted to mean slavery, for the man who did not like the
conditions could refuse them, just as he can now.

But note that other statement of Mr. Ingersoll’s : —

If the Government is to provide work it must decide for the worker
what he must do.

Must it ? Why ?

At present the capitalist finds work, but he does not
decide what we must do. He cannot decide, or he
would.

So when the State found work it would not decide what
each man must do.

You will ask me how a Socialist State would apportion
the work. I ask you how the work is apportioned now.

You have a son, say a lad of fourteen, and wish to put
him to a trade. You ask him his choice He says he
would like to be a cabinet-maker. You apply at the shops
in your own town and you find that trade is bad, or that

166

MERRIE ENGLAND.

the allowed number of apprentices is made up. So you
get the boy work as an engineer or a painter.

That is to say, your boy can choose his trade subject to
the demand for labor of certain kinds. If all the boys
wanted to be engineers they could not all get work at
that trade.

These conditions would exist under Socialism. The
State or the municipality would need a certain number of
plumbers and a certain number of painters. If more boys
asked to be painters than the State needed to do its paint¬
ing, some of those boys would have to take other work.
Where does the slavery come in ?

Robert Ingersoll is considered a very able man, and
Herbert Spencer enjoys the reputation of being a great
thinker.

What have these famous men been doing with their
eyes? IIow have they contrived to commit the egregious
blunder of supposing that men have free choice of occupa¬
tion now? How many men do you know, John Smith,
who are working at the trade of their choice or living
where and how they please ?

Let us return to your boy of fourteen. Suppose, instead
of choosing to be a cabinet-maker, he said, “ I want to be
a doctor!” You would laugh at him. Why?

Because it is absurd for a weaver’s son to ask to be a
doctor. Why ?

Because it costs a lot of money to become a doctor.
And, once more, why ? Because a doctor has a great deal
to learn, and education is dear.

So though your son wishes to be a doctor, though he
might possess great talent for the work, he must go and
be a candlestick-maker instead, for you are too poor to
give him his choice.

But under Socialism education would be free. It would

ME BRIE ENGLAND.

167

be free to all. Therefore the competition for doctorships
would be equal. It would not be what it is now — a close
thing for the privileged classes. So your boy would have
as good a chance as any other.

“ Ah,” but you will say, “ under Socialism all the boys
would want to be doctors and artists and writers.” Very
likely. And at present all the boys want to be “ gentle¬
men,” but very few of them get their wish, and many of
them have to be beggars or thieves.

Under Socialism an y boy who had the industry and
talent might qualify himself to get a diploma. Of course,
when he had got it, he might not get an appointment as
one of the medical men for his town.

But I understand that there are at present a good many
doctors with no practice.

There is no greater blunder possible than the blunder
of supposing that in this country at the present time every
man may follow the work of his choice. It is a ridiculous
error.

To read Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Ingersoll, and Mr. Spencer,
you would think that things are so well ordered now that
all kinds of work must fall to the men best fitted to do it.

Writers and painters have to write and paint what they
can sell; provided they can get a chance to write and
paint at all.

Take my own case. Here I am, after being forty-two
years a free man, in a free country, obliged to confess
that I have never yet succeeded in doing the kind of work
I have wanted to do.

Turn your eyes to trade. There are two carpet fac¬
tories in a town. Another man sets up in that trade.
What happens ? He may be a good man and a clever
man; and he may make better carpets than the other
firms, but unless he is very rich they will ruin him by

168

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

selling below cost price in order to retain the trade in
their own hands.

Or suppose there are two papers in a town and a rival
paper is started. What will happen ?

The new paper may be a much better paper than the
old ones, but unless its proprietor is a rich man it cannot
live. Why ?

Because there is such a thing as a boycott. The pro¬
prietors of the established papers will send around to the
news-agents and say, “ If you sell the Comet I will take
away the agency for the Fog Horn” and “ If you sell the
Comet I shall get fresh agents for the Welsher

Now suppose the agent is poor, as most agents are, and
suppose he is selling both those papers and clearing ten
dollars a week on the sale. Is it likely that he will risk
the ten dollars for the sake of selling a good paper which
may not pay him one shilling, or may not live a month?

Do you call that agent a free agent? Do you mean to
say that the would-be proprietor of the Comet is a free
man, or that he can do what work he pleases?

Under present conditions, rascality and money can
always overreach honesty and brains.

I am not talking fine-spun theory now, like that of
Robert Ingersoll. I am telling you facts and arguing from
experience.

About a year ago I met the manager of a weekly London
paper. He told me that he was trying to establish a cir¬
culation in the provinces, but that the local papers had
boycotted him. And then he said, “ We are making some
headway, and have got a small sale ; but every copy of
our paper we sell costs us a dollar to dispose of.” You
will observe that the merit of the papers had nothing to
do with the case. The London paper was certainly bet-

MERRIE ENGLAND. 169

ter than its local rivals. But the locals had blocked the
agents and lowered their prices.

Talk about slavery ! Freedom of contract ! ■ Under
your much-glorified freedom of contract, how many con¬
tracts are freely made? Under your vaunted liberty of
the Individual, how many individuals have any liberty at
all ? At this present day in this fine country the bulk of
the people are slaves. They are slaves not to a wise, bene¬
ficent, and popular Government, but to a ring of greedy,
grasping fools ; a coterie of rich barbarians — who would
boil down the last nightingale if they thought his bones
would serve to dye yarn ; who would choke up the last
well if they had no place handy in which to shoot their
alkali dust, and would cover the last rood of sward with
ashes, if they thought there was no hope of grinding the
said ashes witli sewer slime to make mortar for the peo¬
ple’s houses. “ Can any one imagine a despotism more
terrible ” than the regulation of work by Government ?
I think so. I think I could find it. But I have no need
to look. See ; it is here, ready to my hand.

It is here, in a letter, long kept by me, a sample of many
I constantly receive : —

If you can see your way to give us poor devils of silk dyers a word or
two I am sure it would do us good. We work longer hours than any
others in the trade in England, get less wages, and, for our lives, or rather
our situations, dare not openly belong to a union. If we strike — as we did
last summer — pressure is brought upon us by our wives and children
(nearly all of whom have to work) being dismissed from- their situations.
If we write to the Lee k Times — the best friend we poor dyers ever had —
we are afraid to sign our names ; and if have a meeting it has to be kept
a dead secret. In fact, it is not worth living to work under such circum¬
stances, and as far as I can see the only union we shall ever get will be the
union workhouse, and many of us are half way there now. Give us a word
to strengthen the fearful and encourage the weak. Somebody must help
us. We cannot help ourselves. We have been down so long that we don’t
know how to get up.

P. S. — For God’s sake do not mention my name.

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

For God’s sake, do not mention my name. What ? It
is no crime to write to a pressman and say, “ I am not
happy,” or “ I am ill-paid.” It is not against the law to
say, “ We have no union ” If a man trembles to hear his
own name given with his own true statements, what
becomes of the sacred “ liberty of the individual ” ? Is
this your liberty, then ? Is this the liberty we “ cannot
sacrifice for any comfort ” ? Are these the noble aspira¬
tions and glorious ambitions that Socialism would trample
out of life? Is this free England’s free choice? When
a free man fears to speak his own flame? Surely there
is some despotism even now extant.

But Mr. Ingersoll says, “ The human race cannot afford
to sell its liberty for any possible comfort.” I have, I
think, said enough to satisfy you that the human race
have no liberty to sell, but I don’t want you to suppose
that Socialism is nothing nobler than a desire for comfort.
We want better things than comfort. We want freedom
and justice, and honor and education. Your individual¬
ist and utilitarian are the disciples of comfort. To their
comfort and to their luxury all that is best and sweetest
in the lives of the poor is sacrificed. They imagine that
so long as the worker has enough to eat and drink he has
all that he requires. The comfort they wot of is the com¬
fort of the hog — an overfed stomach, a bed of straw, and
a close and filthy stye. We Socialists ask that the people
shall be held as something better than hogs. We ask
that they shall be treated as men and women — and to
men and women comfort is not the fulfilment of life.

The people need more than wages. They need leisure.
They need culture. They need humane and rational
amusement. They need the chance to exercise those
“splendid ambitions and aspirations ” about which our
critic is eloquent.

MERE IE ENGLAND.

171

I want to know why the collier and the weaver and the
railway drudge and the silk dyer should be doomed to a
dull and brutish round of labor — I will not call it work —
and greasy stew, and bad beer, and straw mattress, and
filthy slum ? I want to know why the yahoo yelping of
the free and easy should be considered recreation ; and
why the promotion to a head shuntership at $5 should
be counted as high enough ambition ? Tell me, why
should not the best that art, and science, and literature,
and music, and poetry, and the drama can do be placed
at the disposal of the humblest workers ? Why should
not the factory girl be an educated lady ? Why should
the collier not be a cultured gentleman?

The answer is “ Capitalism ! ” The exigencies of capi¬
talism grind these people down, rob them of rest, of energy,
of health, of food, of time — so that they have neither
heart nor mind nor opportunity to become aught but
drudges. Talk about “ splendid ambitions and aspira¬
tions ! ” Such things now are for the fortunate few ; but
we want them for the many.

Beware of mistaking “ what is understood as Socialism ”
for the genuine article. Genuine Socialism would make
the collier into a gentleman. “What is understood as
Socialism ” could only make the gentleman into a collier.
There is a difference.

17 '2

MElililE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XIX.

INDUSTRY.

Nearly every problem of State policy and economy, as at present under¬
stood, and practised, consists in some devise for persuading you laborers
to go and dig up dinner for us reflective and aesthetical persons, who like
to sit still, and think, or admire. So that when we get to the bottom of the
matter, we find the inhabitants of this earth broadly divided into two great
masses ; the peasant paymasters — spade in hand, original and imperial
producers of turnips; and, waiting on them all around, a crowd of polite
persons, modestly expectant of turnips, for some — too often theoretical —
service. — Ruskin.

When Socialists complain of the misery of the poor
they are often told by Pressmen, Parsons, and Politicians,
that all the sufferings of the poor are due to their own
vices and folly. Thus, a short time ago, the Manchester
Examiner and Times, in reviewing a little book of mine,
went out of its way to offer me a lesson in political econ¬
omy, and announced that the misery of the masses was
due “to sin, hereditary and acquired.”

The Examiner implied, of course, that the misery of
the people was due to their own sin.

This is the very reverse of the truth. The misery of
the people is due to the sins, negligences, and ignorances
of those who rob them of their earnings, and grow rich
upon their moral ruin and physical destruction. Is it
true that poverty is the result of idleness, of improvi¬
dence, and of vice ?

If it were, then we should always find that the idle, the
vicious, and the improvident were poor ; and that the
industrious, the thrifty, and the temperate were well off.

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

178

But it is a fact that many idle, vicious, and improvident
people are rich, and it is a fact that the poorest people in
the world are the most industrious, and sober, and
thrifty.

Now, I want to convince you of two things. Firstly,
that the vices of the poor are due to their surround¬
ings, instead of the surroundings being due to the vices;
and, secondly, that universal industry, and thrift, and
temperance amongst the poor would tend to make them
poorer than they now are.

The sins laid to the charge of the poor are three : —

1 Idleness.

2 Improvidence.

8 Drunkenness.

The first charge is a false libel. So far from the poor
being criminally idle, they are criminally industrious.

The second charge is a misnomer. The improvidence
of the poor is so clearly due to ignorance that it should
be called by that name.

The third charge, that of drunkenness, has a greater
foundation of truth, although I believe from my personal
observation, which has been extensive, that the poor are
much more temperate than many of their critics would
have us believe.

First of all, let us consider this word industry. You
often hear industry praised as a virtue. I think the thing
is not a virtue in itself. The virtue lies in the motive
and method of its use. There is no virtue in a plough.
It is an instrument for good or evil according as it is
used for preparing the field for a crop, or for tearing up
the garden of an enemy. So with industry. We read of
those whose hands are cunning to devise an evil thing,
and whose feet are swift to do iniquity. We should not
praise a burglar for his industry though he might rob a

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dozen villas in a week. If mere doing is to get us praise,
what laudable and industrious men were Alexander and
Bonaparte ! They were always working, but the seed
they sowed was evil.

Industry is only expedient and valuable for the nation
when it produces good fruits. It is only laudable in the
individual when inspired by noble motives. You must
not suppose that the nations which do the most work are
the greatest nations. You must not fall into the error of
the economist, and suppose that the people who “produce
most ” are the greatest or the worthiest people. Before
praising a nation for its productiveness and industry, we
should inquire if the things they produce are noble or
worthless things, and if the labor of their hands is the
labor of slaves or of freemen — of artists or of Philis¬
tines.

It does not follow that the man who works the hardest
is the most industrious man, nor that he deserves much
credit for what he does. He may be constrained to work
by force of fate. It may be with him a case of work or
starve. lie may be working for selfish ends only — for
greed, or avarice, or ambition, or vanity — as many of us
are. Then if the work of his hands or wits be good work
it is expedient, but it is not noble in him. He deserves
as little admiration, earns as little reward, and is inspired
by motives no higher than those which actuate the money¬
lender, or the gambler, or the time-serving politician.

The kind of industry worthy of praise is the kind which
is useful in its ends and unselfish in its objects. If, in
a colony, there were a scarcity of corn, if a few men owned
the land and the rest had to till it for their food ; if the
landlords gave only a pound of meal for a day’s service,
and set the day’s service at fourteen hours, the servants
would have to work hard. They would have to work

MEIWIE ENGLAND.

175

like beasts of burden ; or starve, or fight. If they toiled
and suffered would you call their slavery industry?
Would you praise and honor them as noble and diligent
men ? I should say they are cowards and fools to endure
this. I should say their lives are laborious, but not in¬
dustrious, and that their efforts are no more worthy in
them or creditable to them than those of the tram-horse
who fags in the shafts all day — for dread of the whip-thong
in his driver’s hand. But that is the commonest form of
industry to-day, and that is the kind of industry the peer
and pressman, the bishop and the capitalist, have in their
minds when they extol the dignity of labor and the virtue
of industry, and when they impress upon the minds of
the working-class audiences the glory of “ honest toil.”

Suppose the case changed with our Colony. The land
is in the hands of the people, but its yield is meagre and
bread is scarce. The working day is fixed at ten hours,
that being the time essential to the production of the
smallest yield capable of supporting life. Would you
call the man who worked his ten hours faithfully day
after day — and no more — an industrious man? Would
you say he was a man to praise and admire ? I should
say no. This man does his duty and no more ; and it is
not a virtue for a man to do his duty, for it would be a
sin if he did not do his duty. This man bears the same
relation to an industrious man that an honest man bears
to a generous one. The honest man pays what is due.
That is all his duty — as he understands it — demands. If
he did less he would be a rogue. But the generous man
not only pays what is claimed — he gives what is wanted.

Again, suppose one man to be left to support himself.
Though he worked twenty hours a day to get food or
luxuries for himself, you would not call that laudable.
Because the motive is purely a selfish one, and all the

176

ME BRIE ENGLAND.

labor is for his own gratification. But this is a form of
industry much belauded by our pastors and masters.
This lonely selfish glutton is a man made of the stuff of
which very many British heroes have been made. lie is
painfully like the men held up to us as examples to copy
and as idols to worship. He is the kind of man who
“gets on.”

Return again to our Colony. The land is the people’s.
The fixed working hours are ten a day ; but the fields are
not enough tilled and the harvests are still poor. Now
suppose some man seeing this goes out and works five
hours extra daily for the common good, he is an industrious
man. He is made of the stuff of which real heroes are
spun. Or suppose he sees that pick and spade and muscle
and bone are overmatched in the struggle to win bread
from the obstinate soil, and seeing this gives all his
thought and time, sacrifices all his pleasures and desires,
to the one task of designing and constructing a plough or
other engine to relieve and feed the weary and famished
people — well, I say, that is an industrious man ; that is
a noble man. His work is “ honest toil ; ” he is a hero.

Or suppose another case — the case of a man who loves
work for its own sake. Here is an artist, say, or a musi¬
cian. He loves art or music. He labors at his chosen art
with all the power lie has, with all the thought, and love,
and courage, and patience of his nature. With a devotion
that no rebuff; can shake, with an affection that no triumph
can weaken, he stands at his easel or sits at his piano
content laboriously and obscurely to create beautiful things
for their own sake. Then, I say, that man is an indus¬
trious man. He is a man most valuable to his fellow-
creatures, but he is not so exalted a hero as the man
described just now. There is a great difference between
work and toil, between task work and work of choice ;

ME1UHE ENGLAND.

177

and this difference — palpable as it is to a man like me,
who has tried both forms of labor — is too often lost sight
of by moralists who make it their business to preach to
the masses.

Between the navvy wheeling interminable harrows of
clay over endless miles of planks at a fixed pittance, and
the struggling author or painter living on dry bread and
dreams in a garret there is this immense difference, that
whereas the navvy's work is a dull, monotonous, unin¬
teresting task, with no motive but that of winning an
animal subsistence, no exercise except for the physical
powers, and no hope beyond a doubtful promotion to the
post of ganger, the work of the painter or the writer,
howsoever poor and obscure he he, is a labor of love ; a
labor that is in itself a pleasure, a recreation, and an
education. A work that employs and trains the highest
faculties; that inspires the heart and brain with the
brightest hopes ; that holds out to the poorest and most
insignificant of its drudges at least a chance, a little
promise, however remote, of the highest honors and the
most magnificent rewards.

It is all very well for the business man, the parson,
the author, the engineer, the member of Parliament, to
abuse the workman as idle, thriftless, and drunken; but
let us do the workman justice. Let us remember that
his work is neither exciting, pleasing, ennobling, nor
remunerative. Often I have heard professional men say,
“ Talk about the working classes ! what do they know of
work ? They never work as hard as I do. They have
not the worry and strain that mental work involves. I
am a manufacturer — a doctor — a lawyer — my work is
never done.” All this is true. The doctor’s work or the
author’s work is never done. But remember that he
loves it so much that he would not wish it ever done. He

12

178

MERR1E ENGLAND.

is so wrapped up in it, so wedded to it, that if it were
done, if lie were obliged to take off the harness and to go
to grass in the prime of life, he would actually break
his heart.

It is very nice for professional men to boast of their
industry and love of work. They are doing the work of
their choice. But take them away from the theatre or the
desk, the pulpit, or the quarter-deck, and set them to
carrying bricks up a ladder, stitching slop clothing, or
scribbling out invoices, and see how they will enjoy that,
and how industrious they will be.

It is easy to tell a workman to be industrious and con¬
tented in that walk of life to which Providence has called
him. But it would be neither easy nor pleasant to take
his place and show him how it should be done ; and I tell
you frankly I believe that if Providence called a Prime
Minister or a Bishop to dig coals or puddle iron, Provi¬
dence would have to use a long trumpet or the gentlemen
would not hear.

Ask any man of taste and sense which he would
prefer — a pitcher with a stencil pattern printed on it, a bad
copy multiplied a thousand times of some original design,
or the same pitcher moulded in a form peculiar to itself, and
ornamented with the original design itself hand -painted,
and not repeated on any other piece of pottery extant.
Ide will tell you he prefers the original work.

Now, ask any man of taste and sense whether he would
rather tend a machine which should turn out pitchers by
the thousand all of one form and color, or himself turn
and mould the clay upon the wheel and under his own
hand. Ask any man who knows men and life and under¬
stands human nature and human work, whether a number
of men or women would rather stamp the same design
ten thousand times upon a piece of plaster, or set to work

MERE IE ENGLAND.

179

with gouge and chisel and carve out leaves and flowers
to their own fancy and design.

In proportion as you can make men’s work artistic
will it become pleasant and elevating and productive of
contentment. In proportion as the work becomes more
pleasing, more interesting and more noble will the people
grow to love it ; and the more the people come to love
their work, the more industrious and contented will they
be. That is one of the practical values of art.

But, again, there is a negative as well as a positive
value in art. If a man’s work is irksome, brutish, cheer¬
less, and without hope or interest, the man grows jaded
and dissatisfied. Getting no hope, no variety, no joy nor
excitement out of the labor of his hands and brain, he
seeks for change and relaxation elsewhere. He must
have change and rest and pleasure. The duller and
harder his task, the more his thirst for excitement and
for ease. Just think of these facts. Remember that by
making a man a drudge, you make him contract a debt
to nature ; and nature will be paid. If you will or must
have drudges, you must and shall provide them an an¬
tidote to the bane, or they must and will provide the
antidote themselves. You see that, do you not ? Well,
there are the drudges drudging all around you. Have
you provided them abundance of pure and innocent
recreation for their leisure and refreshment? You have
not. But you grant a great many public-house licenses I
notice. You set them an example on the Stock Exchange
and in the counting-house and on the racecourse which
they may follow. And the result - ?

180

MERRIE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XX.

ENVIRONMENT.

A civilized people desires that they who produce its wealth should be
intelligent, honest, thrifty, far-seeing, prudent, and, to the fullest extent
possible, cultivated and well mannered. It is impossible that these ad¬
vantages should be secured, and the economics which they invariably
effect secured with them, unless the workman is adequately remunerated
for his labor, and is encouraged to hope. — Thorold Rogers.

In Sicily the workers ars as temperate as dogs ; and they are treated tike
dogs. — The Clarion.

Some sell their lives for bread ;

Some sell their souls for gold ;

Some seek the river bed ;

Some seek the workhouse mould.

Such is proud England’s sway,

Where wealth may work its will ;

White flesh is cheap to-day,

White souls are cheaper still. — Fantasias.

By Nature we nearly resemble one another; condition separates us very
far. — Confucius.

Let us now consider how far drunkenness is responsi¬
ble for the poverty of the masses. First of all, let me
say a few words on drink and drinking. It would be a
mistake to suppose that the man who is oftenest drunk
is the heaviest drinker. Many a highly-respectable mid¬
dle-class gentleman spends more money on drink in one
day than a laborer earns in a week, yet withal is accounted
a steady man. I have seen a journalist, and one very
severe upon the vices of the poor, drink eight shillings
worth of whiskey and soda in an evening, and do his work
correctly. I have known a sailor to sit up all night play¬
ing at cards, and consume about a pint of rum and a gal-

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181

Ion of stout in the process, and then go out at eight in the
morning and score nine consecutive bull’s-eyes at 200
yards. But the average poor laborer of the slums would
be mad on a quarter of the liquor. Why ?

There are three principal reasons : — 1. The laborer is
often in a low state of health. 2. The laborer does not
drink with any caution or method. 3. The laborer does
not get pure liquor.

Now I must in justice say for the poor that they have
great excuse for drinking, and that they are often blamed
for being drunk when they are simply poisoned.

Drunkenness is a disease. It is just as much a disease
as typhus fever or cholera, and often arises from very
similar causes. Any medical man will tell you that
the craving for alcoholic stimulants is frequently found
amongst men whose nervous system is low.

But there are, I think, three chief causes of drunken¬
ness. A man may crave for drink when his system is out
of order. And this may result, and generally does result,
from overwork, from worry, from dulness of life, induc¬
ing depression, from lack of rest, or from living or work¬
ing amid unhealthy surroundings. Hence you will find
many professional men give way to drink from sheer men¬
tal over-strain, and you will find many dwellers in the
slums give way to drink from loss of sleep, from over¬
work, from ill-health or from the effects of foul air.

Or a man may become a drunkard from the habit of
taking drink. Doubtless there are many thousands of
men working in the coal mines, or ironworks, or as coal
dischargers, or as wool staplers, or masons, or chemical
laborers, who from the intense heat, or severe exertion,
or choking dust, amongst which they labor, are compelled
to drink freely, and so acquire the morbid taste for
liquor.

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Or a man may lead a dull and cheerless life, and live
amid squalid and gloom}?’ surroundings, and so may con¬
tract the habit of going to the public-house for company
and change and for excitement, and so may acquire the
habit of drinking by those means.

Or a man may have inherited the disease from drunken
parents ; parents who acquired it from one of the causes
above named.

Now, Mr. Smith, you know that many of the poor work
at unhealthy trades and live in unhealthy places ; and
you know that they work too hard and too long, and that
their lives are dull and anxious, and I ask you is it sur¬
prising that such people take to drink? Moreover, those
purists who bear so hardly upon the workers for this
fault, have seldom a word to say against the men who
drive them to drink. But the real culprits, the people
actually responsible for nearly all the drunkenness of the
poor, are the grasping employers, the polluters of the
rivers and the air, the jerry-builders, the slum-lords, and
the detestable knaves who grow rich by the sale of
poisoned and adulterated liquor.

Give the people healthy homes, human lives, due leis¬
ure and amusement, and pure meat and drink, and
drunkenness will soon disappear. While there are slums,
while men have no pure pleasure, while they are over¬
worked, and untaught, and while the wealthy brewer can
open his poison dens at every street corner, it will be use¬
less to preach temperance. The late Dean of Manches¬
ter spoke like a man of sense when he said that if he lived
in the slums he too would take to drink.

Do you doubt me when I say that it is the surround¬
ings that make the vices of the people ?

Put a number of well-disposed people into bad surround¬
ings and compel them to stop there. In a century you

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183

will have the kind of people now to be found in the slums.
Take, now, a lot of people from the slums and put them
in a new country where they must work to live, where
they can live by work, where fresh air and freedom and
hope can come to them, and in a generation you will have
a prosperous and creditable colony. Do you not know
this to be true ? Has it not happened both ways ? Do
not Dr. Barnardo’s outcast children turn out well? Then
what is the reason ? Men are made by their environment.

It has been said that dirt is matter in the wrong place.
I often think that ne’er-do-wells are examples of energy
in the wrong place. Emerson says “ There is no moral
deformity but is a good passion out of place.” Some nat¬
ures cannot thrive without a great deal of excitement.
They have in them such desire of activity, such hunger
for adventure, that they are incapable of settling down
to the dull hum-drum life of British respectability and
profit-making. Sir Walter Raleigh was a bold explorer
and a grand admiral, but I cannot imagine him a success
as a Lancashire weaver, with $5 a week and two holidays
a year. Turn these restless spirits loose in a congenial
sphere, and they will do much good work, as, indeed,
much good work has been done by such. But d ulness
and monotony, task work and tracts, are not food hot
enough for their palates. And so they seek such change
and such excitement as lie in their way. And the dealer
in doctored gin and the retailer of racing “ morals ” find
their profit in them ; but they might have been fine fac¬
tors in the sum of human progress.

To tell these people that they shall have help and love
when they quit their vices is like telling a sick man that
he shall be sent to the seaside as soon as he recovers his
health.

Sow some wheat on sterile land, and it will give a poor

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harvest. Would you say “ While there are poor harvests
there must be sterile lands ? ” Put a fish into a small
and dirty globe, and he will sicken. Would you say that
while there are sick fishes there must be small globes and
impure water ? Yet you say while there are vice and
improvidence there must he poverty.

Why, do the middle and upper classes take so much
trouble with the nursing and education of their children ?
Why do they instil into their young minds principles of
honesty, of industry, of virtue, of culture ? Why do they
send their sons and daughters to school and to college.
Why do they teach them cleanliness and sobriety ? Why
do they so jealously watch over their morals? Why do
they take such trouble and incur such expense in the
effort to shield them from all that is vicious, and indecent,
and unhealthy ? Is it not to ensure their moral and mental
and physical welfare ? You will say, “ Of course.”

It seems, then, that even the children of educated, hon¬
est, and virtuous parents need to be carefully trained and
guarded to prevent them falling into idleness and vice.
For if children would grow up good without watchfulness
and cultivation, it would be mere folly and waste of time
and means to trouble about teaching them. Now if all
this care is necessary to ensure moral excellence, it fol¬
lows that without such care moral excellence could not
he ensured. That is to say, that in our colleges, in our
Sunday-schools, in our home lessons, in the tender and
earnest solicitude of good parents, we find an acknowledg¬
ment of the fact that a child is what he is taught to be.

Now suppose a child is deprived of this education.
Suppose it is born in a poor hovel, in a poor slum. Sup¬
pose its home surroundings are such that cleanliness and
modesty are well-nigh impossible. Suppose the gutter is
its playground; the ginshop its nursery; the factory its

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185

college ; the drunkard its exemplar ; the ruffian and the
thief its instructors ! Suppose bad nursing, bad air, bad
water, bad food, dirt, hunger, ill-usage, foul language, and
hard work are its daily portion. Suppose it has inherited
poor blood, dull spirits, enfeebled wit, and stunted stature,
from its ill-fed, untaught, overworked, miserable, igno¬
rant, and unheal thy parents, can you expect that child to
be clever, and moral, and thrifty, and clean, and sober ?

Again. What next to their education and surroundings
makes well-bred and well-taught children happy and
good and industrious? Simply their good and pleasant
environment. Life is to them worth living. They have
comfort and love and knowledge and — hope. But the
child of “ the great unwashed ” has none of these things.
His lot is labor and poverty, his pleasure is in drunkenness
and gambling, his future is gloomier than his horrible
present. You talk about the social virtues! These poor
creatures have not even food, or rest, or air, or light ! Now,
I say, give them food and air, and light and leisure; give
them education, and give them hope, and they will cease
to be vicious and improvident.

The poor ! The poor ! The poor ! The thriftlessness
of the poor! The intemperance of the poor! The idle¬
ness of the poor ! How long yet have we to listen to this
cackle? How long have we to hear men prate about the
poor and about the working classes who never knew what
poverty is, who never knew what hunger means, who
never did a stroke of manual work, and whose knowledge
of “the poor” is got from the poems and the novels and
the essays of university “swells,” or from furtive and
uncharitable glances at the public-house steps or the pawn¬
shop door as their excellencies’ carriages are hurrying
them through the outskirts of the slums!

Perhaps you will say, John, that if the surroundings

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make the man, then all the denizens of the slums, and all
the workers in the mines, would drink. But, no. You
would not say that the had drainage of a district would
give all the inhabitants the fever, but only that it would
give those the fever whose health made them most amen¬
able to the germs of the disease.

I am not arguing that poverty inevitably leads to drink,
but only that it is the chief cause of drunkenness.

There is a common belief to the effect that if the poor
were all industrious, sober, and thrifty they would cease
to be poor. This error arises from confusion of thought.

It is quite true that a sober man will succeed better
than a drunken man; but it is not true that if all the
people were sober their wages would increase.

Suppose there are ten clerks in an office, nine of whom
are unsteady and one steady. The steady man will very
likely become head clerk. But this is not because he is
steady, but because the others are not steady. For you
will observe that no one thinks of promoting a clerk be¬
cause he is honest, for very few clerks being dishonest
the honest clerk is not singular.

You must not suppose that because a sober and indus¬
trious man will succeed — in some trades — better than a
drunken and lazy man that therefore the whole trade
would succeed better by becoming abstainers and hard
workers ?

You are fond of “facts.” What are the facts with
regard to thrift and industry amongst the workers?

The Hindoos are amongst the most abstemious and in¬
dustrious people; and they are about the worst-paid people
in the world. The immigrant Jews in the tailoring and
slipper trades are wonderfully thrifty, sober, and indus¬
trious, and they work terribly long hours for shamefully
low wages.

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187

Under competition the workers do not gain any advan¬
tage by being sober and industrious. They gain a lower
depth of serfdom and a harder task of slavery. If the
Englishman will work for fifteen hours and live on bread
and cheese, the foreigner will have to work for eighteen
hours and eat grass, and that is what your capitalists
mean when they tell you that Englishmen are being
pushed out of the market by foreigners because foreigners
will work harder and take less pay.

But allow me to quote the statement of this case given
by me in my reply to the Bishop of Manchester : —

“ In all foreign nations where the standard of living is
lower than in England, your lordship will find that the
wages are lower also.”

“ Has not your lordship often heard our manufacturers
tell the English workers that if they would emulate the
thrift and sobriety of the foreigner they might success¬
fully compete against foreign competition in the foreign
markets ? My lord, what does that mean, but that thrift
would enable our people to live on less, and so to accept
less wages ? ”

“Your lordship knows that our shirtmakers here in
Manchester are miserably paid.”

“This is because capitalism always keeps the wages
down to the lowest standard of subsistence which the
people will accept.”

“ So long as our English women will consent to work
long hours, and live on tea and bread, the ‘ law of supply
and demand ’ will maintain the present condition of sweat¬
ing in the shirt trade.”

“If all our women became firmly convinced that they
could not exist without chops and bottled stout the wages
must go up to a price to pay for those things.”

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“ Because there would be no women offering to live on tea
and bread; and shirts must be had.”

“ But what, my lord, is the result of the abstinence of
these poor sisters of ours ? Low wages for themselves,
and, for others - ?

“ A young merchant wants a dozen shirts. lie pays 10s.
each for them, lie meets a friend who only gives 8s. for
his. He goes to the 8s. shop and saves 24s. This is clear
profit, and he spends it in cigars, or champagne, or in some
other luxury ; and the poor seamstress lives on toast and
tea.”

Many shallow thinkers assert that if a man is determined
to succeed he will succeed. This is not true, but if it
were true it would not prove that the qualities of energy,
talent, and self-denial which enable one man to improve
his condition would enable all men to improve their con¬
ditions. For the one man only succeeds because of his
superior strength and skill ; but if all men displayed
strength and skill equal to his he could not rise.

There is a panic in a theatre and a fight for egress. A
big strong man will force his way out over the bodies of
the weak.

Now don’t you see how foolish it is for that man to tell
the weak that if they were as strong as he they could get
out? If they were as strong as he, he could not get out
himself.

A short time ago a certain writer, much esteemed for
his graceful style of saying silly things, informed us that
the poor remain poor because they show no efficient desire
to be anything else. Is that true? Are only the idle
poor ? Come with me and I will show you where men
and women work from morning till night, from week to
week, from year to year, at the full stretch of their
powers, in dim and foetid dens, and yet are poor — ay, des-

ME ERIE ENGLAND.

189

titute — have for their wages a crust of bread and rags.
I will show you where men work in dirt and heat, using
the strength of brutes, for a dozen hours a day and sleep
at night in styes, until brain and muscle are exhausted
and fresh slaves are yoked to the golden car of commerce,
and the broken drudges filter through the union or the
prison to a felon’s or a pauper’s grave! And I will show
you how men and women thus work and suffer and faint
and die, generation after generation ; and I will show you
how the longer and the harder these wretches toil the
worse their lot becomes ; and I will show you the graves,
and find witnesses to the histories of brave and noble and
industrious poor men whose lives were lives of toil, and
poverty, and whose deaths were tragedies.

And all these things are due to sin — but it is to the sin
of the smug hypocrites who grow rich upon the robbery
and the ruin of their fellow-creatures.

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CHAPTER XXI.

THE RIGHTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL.

I think that my contention, which I see quoted by Mr. Goscken, could
be exhaustively proved, that every act of the legislature which seems to
interfere with the doctrine of laissez-faire , and has stood the test of ex¬
perience, has been endorsed because it has added to the general efficiency
o labor, and, therefore, to the general well-being of society. — Thorold
Rogers.

Law was made for property alone. — Macaulay.

You have very likely, heard of the thing called Indi¬
vidualism. You may have read articles or heard speeches
in which Socialism has been assailed as an interference
with the rights of the individual. You may have wondered
why among the rights of the individual, no place was
given to the right to live ; or that the apostles of Indi¬
vidualism should be so strangely blind to the danger of
leaving private enterprise tm-curbed. But you need not
wonder about these things, for Individualism is a relic of
savagery and its apologists would be agitating for the re¬
turn of the good old individual right of carrying a stone
club and living by promiscuous robbery and murder, were
they not convinced that the law of supply and demand,
although a more cowardly and brutal weapon than the
cannibal’s club, is infinitely more deadly and effective.

Society consists of individuals — so Herbert Spencer
says. And that dogma if it means anything, means that
society is a concourse of independent atoms and not a
united whole. But you know that statement is not in
accord with fact or reason — not to speak of morality.

MEIiRIE ENGLAND.

191

You know that society consists of a number of more or
less antagonistic parties, united amongst themselves for
purposes of social warfare, and that where an independ¬
ent individual is found he is always either a good man,
trying to persuade the combatants to reason and right¬
eousness ; or a bad man, trying to fleece them that his
own nest may be warm.

How, indeed, can society be a multitude of unconnected
units? I look in my dictionary, and I find the word
“ society ” defined as “ a union of persons in one interest ;
fellowship.” And clearly, society means a number of
men joined by interest or affection. For how can that be
a society which has no social connections? A mob of
antagonistic individuals is a chaos, not a society.

And with regard to that claim that men should be left
free to fight each for his own hand — is that civilization or
anarchy ? And will it result in peace or in war, in pros-
perty or in disaster? Not civilization, but savagery; not
Christianity, but cannibalism is the spirit of this doctrine
of selfishness and folly. And I ask you again in this
case, as I did in the case of the gospel of “ avarice” : Is
not love stronger than hate? And will not a society
founded on love and justice certainly flourish, as the
society founded on hate and strife will certainly
perish ?

Before you answer look around you at the state of
England to-day, and cast back in your mind for the les¬
sons of the nations that are gone. What is the apex of
the gospel of avarice and of the law of supply and de¬
mand ? Sweating ! What is the result of the liberty of
the individual, to cozen the strong and destroy the weak
for the sake of useless gain or worthless power? Does
not one man wax rich by making many poor — one man
dwells in a palace by keeping many in hovels ? And are

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not the people crushed with taxation, which the impotent
and lazy squander and misuse?

One Individualist, Mr. Levy, in an article written by
him against Socialism a few years ago, says that —

The Individualist denies to A and B the right of prescribing for C what
will do him good, and forcing it down his throat by the aid of the police¬
man’s truncheon. He denies that A and B have any right whatever to
coerce C, except to prevent him invading the rights of others , and to exact
from him his share in the maintenance of the common liberty.

The italics are mine. On this point we are agreed.
Our difference is as to what constitutes an “ Invasion of
the rights of others.” I say, why punish the kind of thief
we call a burglar, and not the kind of thief we call a
sweater ? Why hang the murderer who kills in the heat
of passion and from motives of jealousy or revenge, and
not the murderer who slays wholesale by the death-trap
of the slums, and slays in cold blood, and from the bestial
motive of -gain ?

Mr. Levy says of Individualism : —

It would strive to make the law such that, in the words of Kant —
“ Every one may seek his own happiness in the way that seems good to
himself, provided that he infringe not such freedom of others to strive
after a similar end as is consistent with the freedom of all.”

This is the same idea expressed in different words.
Where are we to draw the line as to the “infringement
of the freedom of others ? ” Are we to let the sweater
and the retailer of diseased meat “ seek their own happi¬
ness in a way that seems good to themselves ” ? Are we
to stop the men who infringe the freedom of others by aid
of the machinery of capitalist monopoly ? Or are we only
to stop the other rogues and ruffians who infringe our
freedom with the bludgeon and the bullet? We agree
that it is right for society to protect itself against some
scoundrels. We differ as to which scoundrels are to be
restrained.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

193

Mr. Auberon Herbert says : —

Government has no moral right to compel men for their own good, but
only to restrain them from such aggressions upon each other as involve
physical force, or such direct fraud as is the equivalent of physical force,
from the point of view of the consent to transaction of the defrauded
person.

And another tract of his is headed by the following
quotation from Mr. Herbert Spencer : —

The liberty of each, limited alone by the like liberty of all.

Now, you will observe that Government is here granted
the power to restrain one man from injuring another by
physical violence or from injuring him by “direct fraud,”
but is not to have power to restrain the operations of in¬
direct fraud. But why should Government be allowed to
prevent violence ? Why should Government be allowed
to prevent murder or highway robbery ? I don’t know
what reason the Individualist has for his belief that Gov¬
ernment should defend the subject from the burglar and
the forger. Because, if it is best to Let the more criminal
and more dangerous sweater rob and slay, I cannot un¬
derstand why it is necessary to interfere with the foot¬
pad and the scuttler. The reason I have for supporting
the Government in its protection of the subject is easily
given. But I’d rather use the word Society than the
word Government.

Society, according to my philosophy, is a union of people
for mutual advantage. Every member of a society must
give up some small fraction of his own will and advan¬
tage in return for the advantages he gains from associa¬
tion with his fellows. One of the advantages he derives
from association with his fellows is protection from injury.
The chief function of Government— which is the execu¬
tive power of the society’s will — is to protect the subject.
Against whom is the subject to be protected ? I should

*3

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MEBBIE ENGLAND.

say against oreign enemies, against injury by his fellow-
subjects, and against calamities caused by his own igno¬
rance. We will lay by the first and third propositions,
and consider the second.

The subject is to be protected by the Government from
injury by his fellow-subjects. Here I traverse the posi¬
tion of the Individualists. They will restrain the assassin
and the passer of base coin, but they will not suffer any
interference with the sacred liberty of the slum landlord
or the sweater. And I fail to see their reason.

There is no reason visible to my mind for empowering
the Government, or society, to hang the man who steals
a watch and murders the owner, except the reason I have
given — that it is for the general advantage that society
should be allowed to protect one of its members from in¬
jury by another. If that is the real reason why Govern¬
ment may hang a Charles Peace or send an “ Artful
Dodger ” to jail, then it is also a sufficient reason why
Government protection should be extended beyond the
limits laid down in Mr. Herbert’s tracts. Because the
sweater and the rack-renter, and the respectable dealer in
adulterated goods are not only morally worse than the
foot-pad and the area-sneak, but they are also guilty of
greater and more deadly injury to their fellow-subjects.

True, sweating and land-grabbing and other forms of
the basest villainy are not illegal ; and I would not have
them illegally meddled with. But I would alter the law
so that they should be illegal. This, I presume, Mr. Her¬
bert would not do. He will only defend us from the gar¬
rotter and the confidence-trick man. But I think it is as
bad for a railway company to work a man a hundred and
eight hours for seventeen shillings, or for a landlord to
charge rent for a death trap, or for a tailor to grind his
hands down to a slavery that takes up all their waking

M ERR IE ENGLAND .

195

hours and gives them in return a diet of bread and coffee,
as for a thief to come and steal your false teeth. Nay,
the sweater is altogether a more hateful, dangerous,
deadly, and cowardly scoundrel than the pickpocket.

Of course, the sweater’s slave and the railway porter are
the “ free ” parties to the bargain. They need not accept
the bloodsucker’s terms unless they choose. They have
an alternative — they can starve. But I presume that even
the most confirmed Individualist would stop a man from
jumping down a precipice, or throwing himself under a
train. That would be physical injury against which it is
right to protect each other. But the poor girl who takes
her suicide in the form of shirt-making is not to be inter¬
fered with. You must respect free contract and the lib¬
erty of the individual.

Individual liberty is what we all desire — so far as it is
possible to have it. But it is not possible to have it in its
complete form, whilst we live in communities. By living
in communities, men get many advantages. It is not good
for man to be alone. For the advantages that society
gives us, we must make some sacrifice. We might well
have much more individual liberty than "we now have.
We might easily have too much. We have too much —
and too little — as things stand. A state of Socialism
would give us all as much liberty as we need. A state of
Individualism — of anarchy — would give some of us more
liberty than it is wise and beneficial we should have.

Most men are honest, most men love justice. For the
great mass of the people the law is almost a dead letter.
Honest men need no laws — except to defend them from
rascals. Have you ever asked yourselves, my friends,
what price our rascals cost us ? For them is all the costly
machinery of Government, of armies, of fleets, of law
courts, of prisons, police, workhouses, and the like main-

196

MERBIE ENGLAND.

tained. Honest men do not need watching, for they
would not steal ; do not need repelling, for they would
not invade. Consider the cost of all our police in its vari¬
ous forms, and then say what do our rascals cost us.

If it had not been for interference with the liberty of
the individual and the freedom of contract in the past the
lot of the workers would have been unbearable.

Ho you know anything about the Truck Act, which
abolished the nefarious custom of paying wages in bad
food ? Hid you ever consider the effect of forbidding the
payment of wages in public-houses, or the employment of
climbing-boys by sweeps? Have you ever read the
history of the Factory Acts ?

In “ The Industrial History of England,” by H. de B.
Gibbins, M. A., you will find a few brief sketches of the
state of things to which unchecked freedom of contract
had reduced the factory workers before the Factory Acts
were passed. From that book I will make a few ex¬
tracts : —

ENGLISH SLAVERY: THE APPRENTICE SYSTEM.

It was not until the wages of the workmen had been reduced to a
starvation level that they consented to their children and wives being em¬
ployed in the mills. But the manufacturers wanted labor by some means
or other, and they got it. They got it from the workhouses. They sent
for parish apprentices from all parts of England, and pretended to appren¬
tice them to the new employments just introduced. The mill-owners sys¬
tematically communicated with the overseers of the poor, who arranged a
day for the inspection of pauper children. Those chosen by the manufact¬
urer were then conveyed by wagons or canal boats to their destination,
and from that moment were doomed to slavery. Sometimes regular
traffickers would take the place of the manufacturer, and transfer a
number of children to a factory district, and there keep them, generally
in some dark cellar, till they could hand them over to a mill-owner in want
of hands, who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily
capacities, exactly as did the slave-dealers in the American markets. After
that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as
apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages, and whom it

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197

was not worth while to feed and clothe properly, because they were so
cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged
by the parish authorities, in order to get rid of imbeciles, that one idiot
should be taken by the mill-owner with every twenty sane children. The
fate of these unhappy idiots was even worse than that of the others. The
secret of their final end has never boen disclosed, but we can form some
idea of their awful sufferings from the hardships of the other victims to
capitalist greed and cruelty. Their treatment was most inhuman. The
hours of their labor were only limited by exhaustion after many modes of
torture had been unavailingly applied to force continued work. Children
were often worked sixteen hours a day, by day and by night . Even Sun¬
day was used as a convenient time to clean the machinery. The author
of the “ History of the Factory Movement ” writes : “ In stench, in heated
rooms, amidst a constant whirling of a thousand wheels, little fingers and
little feet were kept in ceaseless action, forced into unnatural activity by
blows from the heavy hands and feet of the merciless over-looker, and the
infliction of bodily pain by instruments of punishment invented by the
sharpened ingenuity of insatiable selfishness. They were fed upon the
coarsest and cheapest food, often with the same as that served out to the
pigs of their master. They slept by turns and in relays, in filthy beds
which were never cool ; for one set of children were sent to sleep in them
as soon as the others had gone off to their daily or nightly toil. There was
often no discrimination of the sexes ; and disease and misery and vice grew
as in a hot-bed of contagion. Some of these miserable beings tried to run
away. To prevent their doing so, those suspected of this tendency had
irons riveted on their ankles with long links reaching to the hips, and were
compelled to work and sleep in these chains, young women and girls as
well as boys suffering this brutal treatment. Many died and were buried
secretly at night in some desolate spot, lest people should notice the
number of the graves ; and many committed suicide.”

In 1873, Lord Shaftesbury, speaking in the House of
Lords, said : —

Well can I recollect, in the earlier periods of the factory movement,
waiting at the factory gates to see the children come out, and a set of sad,
dejected, cadaverous creatures they were. In Bradford, especially, the
proofs of long and cruel toil were most remarkable. The cripples and dis¬
torted forms might be numbered by hundreds, perhaps by thousands. A
friend of mine collected a vast number together for me ; the sight was
most piteous, the deformities incredible. They seemed to me, such were
their crooked shapes, like a mass of crooked alphabets.

You will find further particulars of these horrors in the

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

Blue Books of the period. Read them; read also the
Blue Books on the sweating system, and the reports of
the Labor Commission; read the facts relating to the
Truck Acts and the chain and nail trades, and then read
Mrs. Browning’s pathetic poem, of “ The Cry of the Chil¬
dren,” and I think you will be cured of any lingering affec¬
tion for the “ Freedom of Contract,” and the “ Rights of
the Individual.”

I quite understand Mr. Herbert’s desire for “ Liberty.”
But we cannot have liberty while we have rascals.
Liberty is another of the things we have to pay for the
pleasure of the rascal’s company. Now I think Individ¬
ualism strengthens the hands of the rogue in his fight
with the true man ; and I think Socialism would fortify
the true men against the rascals. I grant you that State
Socialism would imply some interference with the liberty
of the individual. But which individual ? The scoundrel
Imagine a dozen men at sea in a boat with only two days’
provisions ? Would it be wise to consider the liberty of the
individual ? If the strongest man took all the food and
left the others to starve, would it be right or wrong for
the eleven men to combine to bind him and divide all
fairly ? To let the strong or the cunning rob the weak
or honest is Individualism. To prevent the rascal from
taking what is not his own is Socialism.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

199

CHAPTER XXII.

LUXURY.

Dick Turpin is blamed — suppose — by some plain-minded person, for
consuming the means of other people’s living. “ Nay,” says Dick to the
plain-minded person, “observe how beneficently and pleasantly I spend
whatever I get ! ”

“ Yes, Dick,” persists the plain-minded person, “ but how do you get
it ? ”

“The question,” says Dick, “is insidious and irrelevant.” — Ruskin.

One sack sufficed each farmer,

Well used to frugal fare;

But the lord waxed fat,

And, spite of that,

Might not consume his share.

Then spake that noble landlord
“ My capital is large,

And I’ll spend a hunk
On a menial flunk’,

To flunkey at my charge.”

— The Clarion.

This woman, ambitious and vain, thinks to enhance her own value by
loading herself with gold, with precious stones, and a thousand other
adornments. In order to deck her in braver array the whole nation ex¬
hausts itself ; the arts groan and sweat in the laborious service ; the whole
range of industry wears itself out. — Bossuet .

There is no country in which the whole annual produce is employed in
maintaining the industrious. The idle everywhere consume a great part
of it ; and according to the different proportions in which it is annually
divided between these two different orders of people, its ordinary or aver¬
age value must either annually increase or diminish, or continue the same
from one year to another. . . . — Adam Smith.

In this chapter I shall deal with the subject of luxury,
and shall endeavor to make clear to you the fact that the

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MERRIE ENGLAND.

luxury of the rich is a direct cause of the misery of the
poor.

It is very important that you should understand this
matter, for it has been often and grossly confused by the
statements of foolish or dishonest men.

It was held for a long time that the rich man in spend¬
ing his money conferred a benefit upon the poor.

This error has long since been abandoned even by most
political economists, and is now only uttered by very ill-
informed or unintelligent people.

Amongst these is His Grace the Duke of Argyll, who,
in a letter to Mr. John Ogilvey, coolly says : —

But there are at least some things to be seen which are in the nature of
facts and not at all in the nature of speculation or mere opinion. Amongst
these some become clear from the mere clearing up of the meaning of
words such as “ the unemployed.” Employment in this sense is the hiring
of manual labor for the supply of human wants. The more these wants are
stimulated and multiplied the more widespread will he the inducement to hire.
Therefore all outcries and prejudices against the progress of wealth and of
what is called “ luxury ” are nothing hut outcries of prejudice against the
eery sources and fountains of all employment. This conclusion is absolutely
certain.

The italics are mine. The Duke seems to suppose that
the people can only live by hiring each other out to labor.
He reminds me of Edward Carpenter’s Island, “ Where
the inhabitants eked out a precarious living by taking in
each other’s washing.” The Duke is quite right in saying
that the more the wants of the rich are stimulated the
more employment there will be for the people. But as
that can only mean that the more the rich devour and waste
the harder the people will have to work, I fail to see that
the “ interests ” of the people lie in stimulating the idlers
to greater gluttony and extravagance. The fact is His
Grace, like Master Turpin in John Ruskin’s dialogue,
quoted at the head of this chapter, has omitted to ex-

MERRIE ENGLAND.

201

plain how the rich get their money , and from whom they
get it.

But the Duke of Argyll is not alone in his ignorance.
The Press we have always with us, and from Pressmen,
writing for large daily papers, I quote three statements,
all false and all foolish.

The first is that “ luxury of the rich finds useful employ¬
ment for the poor.”

The second that “ the expenditure of the rich confers
upon the poor the two great blessings of work and
wages.”

The third that “ a rich man cannot spend his money
without finding employment for vast numbers of people
who without him must starve.”

These statements, you will see, all amount to the same
thing. The intelligent Pressmen who uttered them sup¬
posed that the rich man spent his own money, whereas he
really spends the money of other people ; that he found
useful work for a number of men, whereas it is impossible
to find a man useful work in making useless things ; and
that the men employed by the rich must starve were it not
for his help, whereas if it were not for his hindrance they
would all be doing useful instead of useless work.

All the things made or used by man may be divided into
two classes, under the heads of necessaries and luxuries.

I should include under the head of necessaries all those
things which are necessary to the highest form of human
life.

** All those things which are not necessary to the highest
form of human life I should call luxuries, or superfluities.

For instance, I should call food, clothing, houses, fuel,
books, pictures, and musical instruments necessaries ; and
I should call diamond ear-rings, race-horses, and broug¬
hams luxuries.

202

M EERIE ENGLAND.

Now, it is evident that all those things, whether luxuries
or necessaries, are made by labor. Diamond rings, loaves
of bread, grand pianos and flat irons, do not grow on trees.
They must be made by the labor of the people, and it is
very clear that the more luxuries a people produce the
fewer necessaries they will produce.

If a community consists of ten thousand people, and if
nine thousand people are making bread and one thousand
are making jewelry, it is evident that there will be more
bread than jewelry.

If in the same community nine thousand make jewelry
and only one thousand make bread, there will be more
jewelry than bread.

In the first case there will be food enough for all, though
jewels be scarce. In the second case the people must
starve, although they wear diamond rings on all their
fingers.

In a well-ordered state no luxuries would be produced
until there were enough necessaries for all.

Robinson Crusoe’s first care was to secure food and
shelter. Had he neglected his goats and his raisins and
spent his time in making shell-boxes he would have starved.
Under those circumstances he would have been a fool.
But what are we to call the delicate and refined ladies who
wear satin and pearls, while the people who earn them
lack bread ?

Take a community of two men. They work upon a plot
of land and grow grain for food. By each working six
hours a day they produce enough food for both.

Now take one of those men away from the cultivation
of the land and set him to work for six hours a day at the
making of bead necklaces. What happens ?

This happens — that the man who is left upon the land
must now work twelve hours a day. Why ? Because,

MERRIE ENGLAND.

203

although his companion has ceased to grow grain he has
not ceased to eat bread. Therefore, the man who grows
the grain must now grow grain enough for two. That is
to say, that the more men are set to the making of luxuries,
the heavier will he the burden of the men who produce
necessaries.

But in this case, you see, the farmer does get some
return for his extra labor. That is to say, he gets half
the necklaces in exchange for half his grain ; for there is
no rich man.

Suppose next a community of three — one of whom is a
landlord, while the other two are farmers.

The landlord takes half the produce of the land in rent,
but does no work. What happens ?

We saw just now that the two workers could produce
enough grain in six hours to feed two men for one day.
Of this the landlord takes half. Therefore, the two men
must now produce four men’s food in one day, of which
the landlord will take two, leaving the workers each one.
Well, if it takes a man six hours to produce a day’s keep
for one, it will take him twelve hours to produce a day’s
keep for two. So that our two farmers must now work
twice as long as before.

But now the landlord has got twice as much grain as he
can eat. He therefore proceeds to spend it, and in spending
it he “finds useful employment” for one of the farmers.
That is to say, he takes away one of the farmers off the
land and sets him to building a house for the landlord.
What is the effect of this ?

The effect of it is that the one man left upon the land
has now to find food for all three, and in return gets
nothing.

Consider this carefully. All men must eat, and here
are two men who do not produce food. To produce food

204

ME HR IE ENGLAND.

for one man takes one man six hours. To produce food
for three men takes one man eighteen hours. The one
man left on the land has, therefore, to work three times
as long, or three times as hard as he did at first. In the
case of the two men we saw that the farmer did get his
share of the bead necklaces, but in the case of the three
men the farmer gets nothing. The luxuries produced by
the man taken from the land are enjoyed by the rich man.

The landlord takes from the farmer two-thirds of his
produce, and employs another man to help him to spend it.

We have here three classes : —

1. The landlord who does no work.

2. The landlord’s servant who does work for the bene¬
fit of the landlord.

3. The farmer who produces food for himself and the
other two.

Now, all the peoples of Europe, if not of the world, are
divided into those three classes.

In my lecture on luxury I showed these things by
diagrams. We will use a diagram representing a com¬
munity of ten men supporting a figure representing ten
men’s food. Thus : —

TEN MEN’S FOOD.

.V, jr, .w, ^ .u, w, ^ M,

'7V -7T Vv •7V 7v 7v '7V "TV '7V '7V

All the men represented here by stars are employed in
making necessaries, and the figure they support is the
amount of their labor.

Now what I want you to clearly understand is that
although you take away one of those ten men and set him
to other work you do not take him away from the con¬
sumption of food. He has still to be fed, and he must be

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

205

fed by the men who produce food. Suppose, then, that
we take away seven of our ten men ; that we make one
of them a Chief, and six of them the Chiefs servants, the
figure will be left thus :

TEN MEN’S FOOD.

* * *

The burden is the same, ten men's food ; but the bearers
are fewer.

C is a jeweler, and sets diamonds for B. Where does
B get the money to pay him ? he gets the money from A.
It is clear, then, that A is keeping both B and C.

Now we are told upon the authority of Mulhall and
Giffen — see Fabian tract, “Facts for Socialists,” — that
the division of the national earnings is as follows : —

Millions.

Rent . 200

Interest . 250

Salaries and profits of middle-class . 350

Wages of workers . 450

1,250

The population is about 36 millions. The annual in¬
come about 5,000 millions. One-third of the people take
two-thirds of the wealth, and the other two-thirds of the
people take one-third of the wealth.

That is to say that 24 millions of workers produce 5,000
millions of wealth and give 4,000 millions of it to 12 mill¬
ions of idlers and non-producers.

This means that each worker works one-third of his
time for himself, and two-thirds of his time for other
people.

This looks bad enough, but it is not the worst. Amongst
the 24 millions of the working-classes there are vast
numbers of non-producers. There are millions of children

206

MERRIE ENGLAND.

and of women who produce nothing, and there must be
millions of male “ workers ” who are engaged in produc¬
ing superfluities. Canon Girdlestone, in his pamphlet,
“ Society Classified,” says : —

It has been shown (by Alexander Wylie, in his “Labor, Leisure, and
Luxury ”) that, even if we give a liberal extension of meaning to the terms
“necessaries ’’and “comforts” of life, so large a proportion as four-elev¬
enths of the entire working population of this country are engaged in pro¬
ducing what, in contradistinction to the above, must properly be classified
as “ luxuries,” i. e., commodities, etc., such as to healthy minds in healthy
bodies are the merest superfluities. And if, as probably is the case, most
of these embodiments of the “ services ” (or, as Dr. Thring calls them,
“ the stored-up life ”) of others are purchased by “ non-workers,” and paid
for in “ money ” only, the bad effect of the transaction taken as a whole
cannot be trifling or contemptible !

I should very much like to see society classified. If it
were classified, and the number producing necessaries
and the number producing luxuries were clearly shown,
I think we should find that every adult male now engaged
in producing necessaries is supporting about twenty
people.

My Lady Dedlock “finds useful employment” for Cris¬
pin, the shoemaker. She employs him to make Court
slippers for her. Let us examine this transaction.

First, where does my lady get her money? She gets it
from her husband, Sir Leicester Dedlock, who gets it from
his tenant farmer, who gets it from the agricultural
laborer, Hodge.

Then she employs Crispin to make Court slippers, and
pays him with Hodge’s money.

But if Crispin were not employed making shoes for my
Lady he would be making boots for Hodge, or for the
children of Hodge.

Whereas, now, Hodge cannot buy boots because he has
no money, and he has no money because my Lady Dedlock
has taken it.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

207

Or my lady orders a silk ball dress from Mrs. Mantilini.
For this also she pays with money earned by Hodge, and
meanwhile what kind of an old rag is worn by Mrs
Hodge ?

Again, as bearing on this question of my Lady Dedlock’s
finding useful labor. I quote from a letter on the “ Scarc¬
ity of Dairymaids,” in the Pall Mall Gazette. Dairymaids
are wanted, and dairymaids cannot be found. Then again
a northern factor says in The North British Agriculturist
that he cannot get dairymaids — though he offers $110 a
year and board. The writer in the Pall Mall asks : —

What would the “Special Commissioner” say about “Life in our Vil¬
lages ” if the £10,000,000 we paid last year for foreign butter, the £4,000,000
for cheese, the £4,000,000 for margarine, and the £4,000,000 for eggs have
been kept at home, giving employment to thousands — tens and hundreds
of thousands — of our own countrymen and women, instead of foreigners ?

Don’t you think it would be an improvement if some of
the “ usefully ” employed domestic servants and milliners,
weavers, spinners, and flower girls in the pay of Lady
Dedlock were set to work to save the $110,000,000 spent
on foreign dairy produce, because there are no hands here
to produce these needed things ?

Let us try to get an idea of the cost of some of those
luxuries which the Duke of Argyll defends.

A couple of years back a lady was summoned to the
County Court for refusing to pay $450, a year’s rent to a
furrier for the storage of her furs. The furs were valued
at $30,000.

To provide those furs a number of workers, including
trappers, hunters, curers, sailors, merchants, and shop¬
men had been “ employed.”

Supposing that each of these people was paid at the
rate of $10 a week, that means :

The labor of one man at $10 a week for 3,000 weeks.

208

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Which means that sixty years of working life had been
spent on the furs. Now, taking twenty years as the
average duration of a man’s working life, we find that an
amount of time equal to the working lives of three men
had been lost to the nation for the sake of an idle woman’s
vanity.

We read, quite commonly, that at Lady Smalltork’s re¬
ception the cut flowers used for decoration coast $5,000.

Estimate the average wages of all the people engaged
in growing and carrying the flowers at $5 a week, we find
that the sum reaches a thousand weeks or twenty years,
that is the equivalent of the whole labor of a man’s life
spent in finding flowers with which to decorate an idle
woman’s room for one night.

Take a larger instance. There are mansions, which, in
building and decoration, have cost millions.

Average the wages of all the men engaged in the erec¬
tion and fitting of such a house at $10 a week. We shall
find that the mansion has “found employment” for 160
men for 20 years. Now while those men were engaged
on that mansion they produced no necessaries for them¬
selves. But they consumed necessaries, and those neces¬
saries were produced by the same people who found the
money for the Duke to spend. That is to say that the
builders were kept by the producers of necessaries, and
the producers of necessaries were paid, for the builders’
keep with money which they, the producers of necessaries,
had earned for the Duke.

The conclusion of this sum being that the producers of
necessaries had been compelled to support one hundred
and sixty men, and their wives and children, for twenty
years ; and for what?

That they might build one house for the occupation of
one idle man .

MERE IE ENGLAND.

209

If this should meet the eye of His Grace the Duke of
Argyll, he will perhaps be able to see that he has made a
slight mistake in telling the workers to stimulate the
wants of the rich.

There was once a wise man who said the happiness of
a people consists not in the abundance of their riches, but
in the fewness of their wants.

His Grace of Argyll has found us a new reading. The
happiness of a people consists in the multitude of their
wants.

I should advise the people to devote all their labor to
satisfying their own wants; not to stimulating the wants
of others. Men cannot exist upon wants ; they exist upon
food. And it is simple enough, even for a Duke to see,
that the more wants a people have the harder will they
have to work to supply them. And when one class culti¬
vates the wants and the other class labors to satisfy them,
why - ?

What a lot of foggy thinkers there are in the world to be
sure. Just look for a moment at this pamphlet. It is
called “The Functions of Wealth,” and is by W. II.
Mallock. Here is a pretty sentence : —

That wealth, which is envied by so many, and which is looked upon
doubtfully by so many more, so far from being the cause of want amongst
thousands, is at this moment the cause of the non-starvation of millions.

Which means that it is the rich idlers who keep the
working poor, and not the working poor who keep the idle
rich.

Mr. Mallock, in another place — he is explaining that
it is an error to think one man’s wealth is another’s want
— says : —

Let us take, for instance, a large and beautiful cabinet, for which a rich
man of taste pays two thousand pounds. The cabinet is of value to him, for
reasons which we will consider presently; as possessed by him it consti-

14

210

MERRIE ENGLAND.

tutes a portion of his wealth. But how could such a piece of wealth be
distributed ? Not only is it incapable of physical partition and distribu¬
tion, but, if taken from the rich man and given to the poor man, the latter
is not the least enriched by it. Put a priceless buhl cabinet into an Irish
laborer’s cottage, and it will probably only add to his discomforts ; or if he
finds it useful, it will only be because he keeps his pigs in it. A picture by
Titian, again, may be worth thousands, but it is worth thousands only to
the man who can enjoy it.

Now, isn’t that a precious piece of nonsense ? There
are two things to he said about that rich man’s cabinet.
The first is that it was made by some workman who, if he
had not been so employed, might have been producing
what would be useful to the poor. So that the cabinet
has cost the poor something. The second is that a price¬
less buhl cabinet can be divided. Of course, it would be
folly to hack it into shavings and serve them out amongst
the mob ; but if that cabinet is a thing of beauty and
worth the seeing, it ought to be taken from the rich bene¬
factor, whose benefaction consists in his having plundered
it from the poor, and it ought to be put into a public
museum where thousands could see it, and where the rich
man could see it also if he chose. This, indeed, is the prop¬
er way to deal with all works of art, and this is one of
the rich man’s greatest crimes — that he keeps hoarded up
in his house a number of things that ought to be the com¬
mon heritage of the people.

Every article of luxury has to be paid for not in money ,
but in labor. Every glass of wine drunk by my lord, and
every diamond star worn by my lady, has to be paid for
with the sweat and the tears of the poorest of our people.
I believe it is a literal fact that many of the artificial flowers
worn at court, are actually stained with the tears of the
famished and exhausted girls who make them.

It is often asserted that the Capitalist is as necessary
to the Laborer as the Laborer is to the Capitalist, and
we are asked, therefore,

MERRIE ENGLAND.

211

How are we going to do without the Capitalist ?

This question is based upon a confusion of thought as
to the meanings of the two terms, Capital and Capitalist.

The Pope in his Encyclical falls into this muddle. He
states the Labor Question as “ The problem of how to ad¬
just the respective claims of capital and labor.”

But to talk about the respective claims of capital and
labor is as absurd as to talk about the respective claims
of coal and colliers, or engines and engine-drivers.

There is a vast difference between capital and the capi¬
talist. Capital is necessary ; but capitalists are not neces¬
sary.

What do we mean by the word capital? There are
many definitions of the word. But it will suffice for us to
say that capital means the material used in the produc¬
tion and distribution of wealth. That is to say, under the
term capital we include land, factories, canals, railways,
machinery, and money.

But the capitalist is not capital. He is the person
who owns capital. He is the person who lends capital.
He is the person who charges interest for the use of capital.

This “ capital ” which he lends at usury ! He did not
produce it. He does not use it. He only charges for it.*

Who did produce the capital ? All capital is produced
by labor. Who does use the capital ? Capital cannot be
used except by labor.

To say that we could not work without capital is as true
as to say that we could not mow without a scythe. To
say that we could not work without a capitalist is as false
as to say that we could not mow a meadow unless all the
scythes belonged to one man. Nay, it is as false as to say
that we could not mow unless all the scythes belonged to
one man and he took a third of the harvest as payment
for the loan of them.

212

MERE IE ENGLAND.

Instances. There is valuable capital in the British
Telegraphs ; but there is no capitalist. The telegraph is
a Socialistic institution. The State draws the revenues
from the people , and the State administers the work. In
our State Departments, the Municipal Departments, there
is much capital, but there are no capitalists. The man¬
ager of a mine is necessary, the owner of a mine is not
necessary ; the captain of a ship is useful, the owner of
a ship is useless.

These are undeniable proofs , as are the roads we walk
on, and the lamps that light our way, that “ capital ” and
“ capitalist ” are not convertible terms.

Mr. Hart, in his pamphlet of Constitutional Socialism,
puts the case against the capitalist very clearly. He says : —

The practicability of Socialism can nevertheless be demonstrated by the
present practical working of huge institutions in commerce, industry, and
agriculture, which are gradually ruining many smaller ones. These enter¬
prises derive their capital either from a gigantic capitalist or from a lot of
shareholders, who know nothing about the business themselves, and who
simply pay managers and clerks or manual workers to do the work for
them. Now, whether there are 8,000 of these shareholders in a country,
or 80,000, or 8,000,000, that does not affect the question, which is : Can
shareholders find managers to produce, transport, and sell wealth for
them ? Answer : yes, as it is being done at present.

Moreover, if it is practical for these managers and their dependents to
conduct business in a state of competition, with the risk of being ruined by
the intrigues or inventions of their rivals, a fortiori would it be practical
for such managers and dependents to conduct business when this risk no
longer existed, and when they had simply to produce a certain number of
goods, according to the demand, and then to transport these goods, to
shops or stores for sale ?

And so much for the question of how can Labor dispense
with Capitalists.

One more question, and I may conclude this chapter : —
Will not the spread of Socialistic ideas tend to
alarm the capitalist, and so cause him to take
his capital out of the country ?

MEERIE ENGLAND.

213

Take his capital out of the country ! He might take
himself out of the country, and he would doubtless take
all the portable property he could carry. But the country
could bear the loss. Let me quote once more from John
Stuart Mill : —

When men talk of the ancient wealth of a country, of riches inherited
from ancestors, and similar expressions, the idea suggested is, that the
riches so transmitted were produced long ago, at the time when they are
said to have been first acquired, and that no portion of the capital of a
country was produced this year except so much as may have been this year
added to the total amount. The fact is far otherwise.

The greater part in value of the wealth now existing in England has
been produced by human hands within the last twelve months. A very
small proportion indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten years
ago ; of the present productive capital of the country scarcely any part,
except farm houses and factories, and a few ships and machines, and even
these would not in most cases have survived so long, if fresh labor had not
been employed within that period in putting them into repair.

The land subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that subsists.
Everything which is produced perishes, and most things very quickly.

Capital is kept in existence from age to age, not by preservation, but by
perpetual reproduction.

This threat about the capitalist taking his capital out
of the country is a common one. It is always used when
workmen strike against a reduction of wages. It was
used during the cotton strike, and during the coal
strike.

Now just fancy the mill owners and the coal owners tak¬
ing their capital out of the country. They might take
some of their machinery ; they could not take their mills,
nor their mines. The threat is nonsense.

Imagine the landlords and capitalists, the shareholders
and dividend-mongers, marching off with the farms, and
Helds, and streets; the mills and mines; the railways and
quarries and canals.

No : let the capitalist go when he will ; he must leave
England and the English behind him, and they will suffice

214

MER1UE ENGLAND.

for each other. It is the capitalist who keeps them apart,
paralyzing both, and helping neither.

A more idiotic assumption was never made than this
assumption that the wasting of wealth by the idle rich is
a good thing for the laboring poor. Follow it out to its
logical conclusion, John Smith, and assure yourself that
the drunkard is a benefactor to the workers because he
finds much “useful employment” for the coopers, hop-
growers, maltsters and others who are doomed to waste
their time in the production of the drink which slakes
his swinish thirst.

MERRIE ENGLAND.

215

CHAPTER XXIII.

MINOR QUESTIONS.

Two ship-captains were wrangling together, when Captain A twitted
Captain B with starving his crew.

“ Come,” retorted B, “ yours is a proper ship, indeed . Why, I hear that
the forecastle mess had no mustard.”

“ Granted,” replied A, “ and I wish we may get some in time. But do
not let that drive out of your mind the fact that your sailors have no
beef.”

Mokal: He who would remove the mote from his neighbor’s eye,
should first pluck the beam from his own. — Clarion Fable.

In this chapter I propose to answer a few of those ques¬
tions which are so often put to Socialist writers and
lecturers.

1. Under Socialism : What will you do with your
loafers ?

Before I answer this question allow me to offer a few
hints to young Socialists. The opponents of Socialism
appear to suppose that if they can suggest any difficulty,
however trivial, which may arise in the working of our
system, they have disposed of the whole matter. Very
many ardent but inexperienced young Socialists fall into
the error of trying to prove that Socialism and Heaven
are the same thing.

Both sides should remember that Socialism is not
offered as a perfect system of life, but only as very great
improvement upon the system under which we now live.

The question, then, is not whether Socialism is the best
thing man can conceive, but whether Socialism is better
than our present method of life.

216

MERRIE ENGLAND.

Therefore, when a critic asks a young Socialist whether
a certain evil will exist under Socialism, let the Socialist
immediately ask his critic whether the same evil exists now.

So in the case of the loafer. Many over-confident,
but not very profound, critics, demand triumphantly,
“What will you do with your loafers?”

To them I say, “ What do you do with your loafers ?”

The word loafer, I take it, means one who loafs or
sponges upon the earnings of other people.

A loafer, then, may be an idle tramp without a shirt to
his back, or he may be an idle peer with a rent-roll of
half a million a year.

It is stated in one of the Fabian tracts — “Facts for
Socialists ” — that there are something like a million of
adult males in receipt of large incomes who never do any
kind of work at all.

Under Socialism these men might continue idle ; but
they would certainly not continue rich, nor would they
continue to be known as “ gentlemen.”

But besides the millions of well-paid and well-fed
loafers who are at present supported upon the earn¬
ings of the poor, there are now in this country immense
numbers of paupers, beggars, tramps, and criminals, as
well as a large army of unemployed workers.

Now before I tell you what would be done with all these
people under Socialism, I must tell you what is done with
them now.

Do you suppose that society does not support these
loafers? But they live; and what do they live on?

All wealth is won by labor, is it not? Then all the
tramps, thieves, paupers, and beggars live upon poor-
rates, plunder, alms, or prison allowances, and all these
means of support are earned by the labor of the working
poor.

MEBRIE ENGLAND.

217

But under your present system you not only feed and
house these loafers, but you go to the expense of masters,
matrons, doctors, warders, and police, all of whom have
to be fed and paid to wait upon or attend to the loafers.

Next, with regard to the unemployed. These people
exist ; and they exist in enforced idleness, and at the
expense of those who work.

Note one or two facts. These people do nothing for
their own support, and many of them, through want and
shame, and forced idleness, become criminals or tramps.

This is not only a waste of wealth, and a waste of power,
it is also a most wicked and disgraceful waste of human
souls.

Now, let us see how things would work out under
Socialism. We will divide our loafers into two classes.
Those who could work and will not, and those who would
work and cannot.

So long as it is possible for a willing worker to be forced
into idleness, so long will there exist a reason for the
giving of alms.

Why do we relieve a tramp on the road, or a beggar in
the street ? It is because we are never sure that the man
is a loafer ; because we always fear that his penury
may be due to misfortune, and not to idleness. But under
Socialism this doubt would disappear. Under Socialism
there would be work for all. Therefore, under Socialism
every man who was able to work would be able to live.
This fact being universally known no able-bodied man
could exist without work. A beggar or a tramp would be
inevitably a loafer, and not a hand would be held out to
help him.

The answer to the able-bodied beggar would be “ If you
are hungry go and work.” If the man refused to work
he must starve.

218

MERRIE ENGLAND.

The answer, then, to the question of what Socialists
would do with the loafers is, that under Socialism we
should oblige the loafer to work or perish ; whereas, under
present conditions, we either make him into a “ gentle¬
man ” or a pauper, or a beggar, or a thief ; in any one of
which capacities he is allowed to live in idleness upon the
• labor of other men.

Tell me, is it not true of Merrie England to-day that the
idlest are the richest, and the most industrious the poor¬
est amongst the people? Well, I want you to remind
your critics of these things when they ask you what
Socialists will do with their loafers.

Let us take another question.

2. Under Socialism : Who will do the disagreeable
work ? Who will do the scavenging f

This question is an old friend of mine, and I have come
to entertain for it a tender affection. I have seldom heard
an argument or read an adverse letter or speech against
the claims of justice in social matters, but our friend the
scavenger played a prominent part therein. Truly, the
scavenger is a most important person. Yet one would
not suppose that the whole cosmic scheme revolved
on him as on an axis ; one would not imagine him to be
the keystone of European society — at least his appearance
and his wages would not justify such an assumption.
But I begin to believe that the fear of the scavenger is
really the source and fountain-head, the life and blood
and breath of all conservatism. Good old scavenger.
His ash-pan is the bulwark of capitalism, and his besom
the standard around which rally the pride and the
culture and the opulence of society. And he never knew
it ; he does not know it now. If he did he would strike
for another penny a day.

We have heard a good deal of more or less clumsy

MEBBIE ENGLAND.

219

ridicule at the expense of the Socialist. We have heard
learned and practical men laugh them to scorn ; we have
seen their claims and their desires and their theories held
up to derision. But can any man imagine a sight more
contemptible or more preposterous than that of a civilized
and wealthy nation coming to a halt in its march of
progress for fear of disturbing the minds of the scaven¬
gers ?

Shades of Cromwell, of Langton, of Washington and of
Hampden ! Imagine the noble lord at the head of the
British Government awing a truculent and Radical Parlia¬
ment into silence by thundering out the terrible menace,
“ Touch the dustman, and you destroy the Empire. Yet,
when the noble lord talks about “ tampering with the
laws of political economy,” and “ opening the floodgates
of anarchy,” it is really the scavenger that is in his mind,
although the noble lord may not think so himself, noble
lords not being always very clear in their reasonings.
For just as Mrs. Partington sought to drive back the
ocean with a mop, so does the Conservative hope to drive
back the sea of progress with the scavenger’s broom.

For an answer to this question I must refer you back to
my chapter on Socialism and Slavery. But the whole
subject has, I find, been very clearly and ably dealt with
by Mrs. Besant in her excellent paper on “ The Organiza¬
tion of Society ” in the Fabian Essays. Mrs. Besant
says : —

There are unpleasant and indispensable forms of labor which, one would
imagine, can attract none— mining, sewer-cleaning, etc. These might be
rendered attractive by making the hours of labor in them much shorter
than the normal working day of pleasanter occupations. . . .

Further, much of the most disagreeable and laborious work might be
done by machinery, as it would be now if it were not cheaper to exploit a
helot class. When it became illegal to send small boys up chimneys,
chimneys did not cease to be swept ; a machine was invented for sweeping
them.

220

MERRIE ENGLAND.

The same idea is expressed in Bellamy’s “ Looking
Backward.”

In the army the various duties are taken in turns.
Guard duty, piquet duty, and the numerous laborious or
unpleasant tasks known as “ fatigue ” are done by parties
of men told off for the jmrpose, and no man can escape
his share.

And how is this work done to-day ? Clearly we all
recognize that scavenging is unpleasant work. Clearly
we all agree that no man would do it from choice. But
some men do it, and the inference is that they do it on
compulsion. They do it, and are made to work long
hours for low wages, and are despised for their pains.

This is gross tyranny and gross injustice, but it is only
another example of the meanness, the selfishness, and the
dishonesty of those whom we falsely call the refined and
superior classes. It is amusing to hear that a man is
“ too much of a gentleman ” to empty his own ashpit,
when the truth is that he is not enough of a gentleman
to refuse to allow his fellow-citizen to empty it for him.
Under Socialism snobbery will perish. And when snob¬
bery is dead, gentility will be ready for burial.

Another common question is : —

3. Under Socialism : Would the frugal workman
lose his house and savings ?

First, as to the savings. M. Richter, in his foolish
pamphlet, “ Pictures of the Future,” makes the people
revolt because a Socialistic Government has nationalized
their savings.

Now, we will assume that such a thing happened, and
that the deposits in the banks were nationalized. Would
the frugal workman lose by that? I say he would
not.

It is true that at present the frugal workman only gets

M EERIE ENGLAND. 221

about one-third of his earnings. Under Socialism he
would get all his earnings.

But why does the frugal workman save ? He saves
against a “ rainy day.” Because if he fall ill, or live to
be old and infirm, he will have to go to the workhouse
unless he has saved.

But under Socialism he need have no fear. No man
would be left destitute or helpless in his old age. The
sick would be cared for, the widows and orphans would
be cherished and defended.

You know that many men now pay high premiums to
insurance companies. This is to provide for their widows
and children. Under Socialism the State would provide
for the widows and children.

That is to say that Socialism is the finest scheme of
life insurance ever yet devised.

Suppose you had by dint of great care succeeded in
saving two or three hundred pounds. Would you not
cheerfully pay that for a State promise of support for
yourself when old — of ample and honorable support — and
of support and education for your children after your
death ?

But I don’t think it is at all likely that a Socialist
State would take the worker’s savings.

And again I ask you to turn your attention to the
present system, under which every worker is robbed of
two-thirds of all he earns.

Then as to the worker’s cottage. Assuming that he
has bought it with his savings, and assuming that the
State nationalized it. What then? A workman now
buys a house that he and his children may be sure of a
home.

Under Socialism every man would be sure of a home.

Once more consider our present system. A few men

222

MEEEIE ENGLAND.

own their own houses. But the great bulk of the people
cannot own a foot of land.

When I was in Ireland I visited some “ estates ” upon
the Galtee Hills. I saw farms which had been made by
the “ tenants.” I*aw places where the peasants had gone
up into the bleak hills, where the limestone blocks lay
thick and only a thin layer of sandy turf covered the
rock, and had spent twenty years in making the land.
They removed the boulders, they dug soil in the valleys,
and carried it up the steeps in baskets ; they bought
manure and lime and they built their own hovels out of
mud and stones.

And then the estate and houses were the property of
the landlord, and he raised their rents from 200 to 500
per cent.

And we are asked whether Socialism would rob the
frugal worker of his home !

It is strange that men should attach importance to
such trivial points as these ; but yet I believe that these
small errors are a great hindrance to the spread of So¬
cialism.

Here is another droll question : —

4. Under Socialism : Who would get the salmon,
and who would get the red-herrings ?

Let us follow the system I suggested, and reverse the
question. Who gets the salmon and who gets the red-
lierrings now ?

Is it not true that the salmon and all other delicacies
are monopolized by the idle, while the coarse food falls
to the lot of the worker ?

Perhaps under Socialism the salmon might be eaten by
those who catch it. At present it is not.

Or perhaps the dainties would be reserved for invalids
and old people, or for delicate women and children.

M till II IE ENGLAND.

223

But certainly we should not see a lot of big, fat, strong
aldermen gorging turtle and champagne while frail girls
worked sixteen hours a day on a diet of crusts and coffee.

It is quite possible that even under Socialism there
might not be enough salmon and pineapple for all. But
it is quite certain that there would be enough bread and
beef and tea for all, which there certainly is not now.

And so much for that question ; and, if you care to
follow it out more fully, I must refer you to my answer
to Richter’s “ Pictures of the Future.”

224

MEIIR1E ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXIV.

PAID AGITATORS.

You will find, if you think deeply of it, that the chief of all the curses of
this unhappy age is the universal gabble of its fools, and of the flocks that
follow them, rendering the quiet voices of the wise men of all past time
inaudible. — Buskin.

The capitalist Press, probably because they cannot con¬
trovert the theory of Socialism, are in the habit of abusing
Socialists. Socialist writers and Socialist speakers, and
very often Trade Union leaders, are commonly described
as “ Paid Agitators ; ” and our Labor papers are charged
with “ pandering to the worst passions of the mob,” and
with “ battening on the earnings of ignorant dupes.”

This is pretty much the same kind of language as
that which the Press employed against John Bright,
Ernest Jones, C. S. Parnell, Charles Bradlaugh, and
other advanced reformers. It is the kind of language
which reformers expect from the Press, and also, I am
sorry to say, from the Church. It is the natural language
of shallow, or timid or interested people, who are startled
by the dreadful apparition of a new idea.

The agitator is not a nice man. He disturbs the general
calm ; he shakes old and rotten institutions with a rude
hand ; he drags into the light of day some loathsome and
dangerous abuse which respectable rascality or cowardly
conservatism has carefully covered up and concealed under
a film of humbug. He tramples upon venerable shams ;
he injures old-established reputations; he bawls out

MERRIE ENGLAND.

225

shameful truths from the house-tops ; he is fierce and
noisy ; uses strong language, and very often in his rage
against wrong or in the heat of his grief over unmerited
suffering, he mixes his own truth with error, and carries
his righteous denunciations to the point of injustice.
The privileged classes hate him ; the oppressed classes
do not understand him ; the lazy classes shun him as a
pest. He finds himself standing, likelshmael, with every
man’s hand against him.

Oliver Wendell Holmes compares the dawning of a
new idea to the turning over of a stone in a field. After
describing all the blind and wriggling creatures who live
beneath the stone, he says : —

But no sooner is the stone turned and the wholesome light of day let in
upon this compressed and blinded community of creeping things, than all
of them which enjoy the luxury of legs — and some of them have a good
many — rush round wildly, butting each other aud everything in their way,
and end in a general stampede for underground retreats from the region
poisoned by sunshine. . . . You never need think you can turn over
any old falsehood without a terrible squirming and scattering of the hor¬
rid little population that dwells under it.

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of some¬
body or other. As soon as his breath comes back he very probably begins
to expend it in hard words. These are the best evidences a man can have
that he has said something it was time to say.

But though the agitator is not a nice man, he is a use¬
ful man. Your pleasant, cultured, courteous, easy gen¬
tleman is a nice man, but he is the unconscious upholder
of all that is bad, as well as of a little that is good.

There was a time when women were tortured for witch¬
craft ; when prisoners were tortured into the confession
of crimes of which they were innocent ; when good men
and women were burnt alive for being unable to believe
the dogmas of other men’s religion; when authors had
their ears cut off for telling the truth; when English
children were worked to death in the factories ; when
*5

226

ME BRIE ENGLAND.

starving workmen were hanged for stealing a little food ;
when boards of capitalists and landlords fixed the workers’
wages ; when Trade Unionism was conspiracy, and only
rich men had votes. Those days are gone ; those crimes
are impossible; those wrongs are abolished. And for
these changes we have to thank the agitators.

The agitators, from Christ downwards, have been the
salt of the earth. It is only such as they who save
society from dry rot and putrefaction.

Then, again, there is the practical hard-headed man
who always comes forward to prove every new tiling
impossible. We English have done many impossible
things. Was it not demonstrated to the general satis¬
faction of the hard-headed ones that Stephenson could
not make a train go twelve miles an hour? Was it not
proved that railways would exterminate horses? Was it
not proved that the Atlantic cable could not be laid ?
Was it not made manifest that the Catholic Emancipation
Acts, the Ballot Act, the Factory Acts, and the Repeal
of the Corn Laws would plunge the nation into Popery,
and anarchy, and ruin? Yet all these reforms were
accomplished b}^ little bands of agitators, in the face of
tremendous opposition, and in spite of yells of execration,
and virulent charges of “battening ” and “incendiarism.”
To return to oar own time. There were never any men
more virulently assailed than are the present leaders of the
Labor movement. The favorite lie is the charge of
charlatanism. The man who conducts a strike or or¬
ganizes a trade union is alluded to by the Press as a
“ paid agitator ; ” the Labor paper is accused of “ batten¬
ing on the earnings of ignorant dupes.”

When a paper calls a man a paid agitator, what does
the charge imply? It implies that he is a liar and a
rogue, who is preaching what he knows to be false and

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

227

preaching it for the sake of making money. So when a
writer is accused of battening on the earnings of ignorant
dupes, he is accused of wilfully gulling poor men for the
sake of profit.

Such charges are uttered and reiterated with such
malicious persistence, that thousands of worthy people
have come to believe that the “ paid agitator ” has an easy
and lucrative trade, and that the Labor paper is rolling
in ill-gotten wealth as the result of its deliberate treachery
to the poor.

Now, I will simply confront the slanders with the facts.

If Labor leaders were dull and incapable men, who
could not hope to make money and position except as
demagogues ; if the work of the paid agitator were easy
and showed no signs of zeal and talent, if the “ paid
agitator ” and the Labor writer preached only to ignorant
people, if they preached doctrines which could not be
maintained, against the cleverest and best informed
leaders of the parties of privilege and plunder, if the
salaries of the “paid agitators ” and the “ Labor writers”
were high and their lives luxurious and easy, then there
might be as much ground to suspect the bona fides of
these men as there now is to suspect the bond fides of
professional patriots, and of pressmen, who are bound by
the tenets of their agreements always to prove Mr. Glad¬
stone in the right, or always to prove him in the wrong.

But if “ paid agitators ” and Labor writers are proved
to be men of industry and ability, who choose the thorny
path instead of the flowery one ; if their doctrines can
withstand successfully all the attacks of their enemies ;
if they can be shown to be living sparely, working hard,
and earning very little, then it seems to me it will be
unnecessary to defend their honor against the furtive
slanders of nameless and incompetent writers who are

228

MERRJE ENGLAND.

well paid, and who do sell their consciences in the open
market and to the highest bidder.

It is a very effective picture, that of the paid agitator
feasting on champagne and turtle or of the Labor writer
driving his carriage along the Brighton promenade. But
it has the fault common to Press pictures — it is a lie.

Let us begin with the paid agitator. Is the trade so easy ?
Is it so well paid ? Take John Burns. lie is an engineer.
Being a good workman John Burns could earn two pounds
a week easily and not work more than fifty-five hours.
Now, I don’t believe John has averaged two pounds a week
as a Labor leader; and his wages have not been promptly
paid ; and I can remember an appeal for subscriptions to
raise his present income of one pound a week, paid by the
Dockers’ Union, to two pounds ; while as far as work is
concerned, his labor is endless and his working hours are
all the hours he can spare from sleep.

The first time I saw him was during the Glasgow strike.
He had made five long speeches that day. He was so
hoarse that I could hardly hear him speak. He looked
utterly fagged out, and at night he went to a second-rate
temperance hotel and had weak tea and bread and butter
for supper. This is not so fine a picture as the other ;
but it is true.

A paid agitator gets hard work, low pay, ingratitude,
and vilification. He will be an old man before his time ;
but a rich man never.

So much for the paid agitator. Now as to the Labor
papers. We are confronted with the assertion that we
batten on the earnings of misguided dupes. The men
who write for the party papers do not batten on the mis¬
guided dupes. The rank and file of the political parties
are not dupes.

They are intelligent and discerning men. The writers

MERRIE ENGLAND.

229

on the party press are not hireling hacks. They are
honorable men. It is merely a coincidence that their con¬
sciences always happen to fit in with the exigencies of
the party situation. They are quite different from the
Labor writer. He “ panders to the mob.” He battens
on the foolish. He rolls in ill-gotten wealth.

Well, let some of the superior pressmen try it. Let
them seek out the “ dupes ’’and go in for “ battening.”
They will find that the “ dupe ” does not yield much
“ batten ” to the square inch. They will very soon have
cause to sing the song of the disappointed Pirate —

We boiled Bill Jones in the negro-pot,

To see how much fat Bill Jones had got,

But there wasn’t much fat upon Jones.

To prove that all Labor writers are honest and earnest
men may be difficult ; but to prove that the British work¬
man is not in the habit of bestowing his money on Labor
leaders and Labor writers is quite easy.

Does the Labor journalist wallow in the wages of the
worker ? Not a wallow.

You leave that to the worker. He has money for beer,
he has money for betting, he has money for parsons, he
has money for missionaries, he has money for party
politics, but he does not like his champions and his serv¬
ants to get fat and lazy, and he takes precious good care
they don’t.

Proofs ? Certainly. In bulk. No Labor paper ever
yet paid its way. No Socialistic paper ever paid its way.
There is not a single Labor leader nor a single Labor
writer in England to-day who is getting one-half the
wages he could earn if he turned his back on Socialism
forever, and went in for making money. Not one.

Mr. Cunninghame Graham is a Labor leader. I don’t

230

MERRIE ENGLAND.

suppose lie ever made a five-pound note out of the cause.
I know lie lias spent above a hundred five-pound notes,
besides his time, in the cause.

Mr. de Mattos is a Fabian lecturer. He spends his
whole time in lecturing on Socialism. He never gets a
penny of pay.

Mr. Charles Bradlaugli was literally crushed to death,
killed by debts contracted in fighting the battles of the
democracy. The democracy let him die.

None of these men seem to have wallowed very deep in
the earnings of their “ dupes.” But I hear that the
Times and the Telegrajih pay their writers well. Comic
Cuts and the Police News are making fortunes. Messrs.
Gladstone, Goschen, Salisbury, and Balfour get a decent
living as politicians, and I have no doubt that Mr. Schnad-
horst receives a better salary than John Burns.

There is nothing pays an English paper better than
racing reports, betting tips, and prurient details of divorce
trials. A Socialist paper will not stoop to any of these
dirty ways of making mone3r.

I commend these facts to the dailies. They write
articles against gambling and print the tips, the betting and
the stock and share lists. They are honorable men.

If any of our readers have an idea that Socialism is a
paying trade, I hope they will do us the justice to abandon
that idea at once. Socialism is in its infancy as a cause.
Socialism is not popular. The Socialists are few in
number. Twenty years hence all this will be changed,
and then the dailies will discover that early Socialists,
though crude thinkers, were useful in preparing the
public mind for the great utterances of the press. In fact
we are preparing the ground for the harvest which other
men shall reap. So mote it be.

The Pope calls the pioneers of Socialism, “ crafty agi-

ME RE IE ENGLAND.

231

tators.” That word crafty implies that these “ agitators ”
are seeking their own ends. I know many Socialists, and
many Socialistic leaders. I know none who can make
profit of it. Most of the leaders, such as Ruskin,
Morris, Hyndman, Carpenter, Shaw, De Mattos, Annie
Besant, and Bland, would lose in money and position
were Socialism adopted now.

We Socialists don’t complain about these things, but
we respectfully submit the evidence to the jury, and ask
for a verdict of acquittal on the charge of “ Battening.”
We claim that we give our time and strength to the poor
and that we get but little in return but suspicion, and
envy, and slander. God bless the poor, say I, and pity
them. They are hard task-masters, and as thankless as
they are foolish, but they cannot help it, poor creatures,
and we hope to do them good.

232

MERRIE ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XXV.

LABOR REPRESENTATION.

The practice of modern Parliaments, with reporters sitting among them
and twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, listening to them, Alls me with
amazement. — Carlyle.

Being a practical man, John, you will naturally say to
me that haying told you what I believe to be the true
solution of the Social Problem, I ought to show some plan
for working that solution out.

I think that the best way to realize Socialism is — to
make Socialists. I have always maintained that if we can
once get the people to understand how much they are
wronged we may safely leave the remedy in their own
hands. My work is to teach Socialism, to get recruits for
the Socialist Army. I am not a general, but a recruiting
sergeant. The most useful thing you can do is to join the
recruiting staff yourself, and enlist as many volunteers as
possible. Give us a Socialistic people, and Socialism will
accomplish itself.

However, I may as well say a few words on the subject
of Labor representation. The old struggles have been for
political emancipation. The coming struggle will be for
industrial emancipation. We want England for the
English. We want the fruits of Labor for those who pro¬
duce them. This issue is not an issue between Liberals
and Tories, it is an issue between Laborers and Capitalists.
Neither of the Political Parties is of any use to the workers,
because both the Political Parties are paid, officered and led
by Capitalists whose interests are opposed to the interests

MERRIE ENGLAND.

233

of the workers. The Socialist laughs at the pretended
friendship of Liberal and Tory leaders for the workers.
These Party Politicians do not in the least understand what
the rights, the interests, or the desires of the workers are ;
if they did understand they would oppose them implacably.
The demand of the Socialist is a demand for the national¬
ization of the land and all other instruments of production
and distribution. The Party leaders will not hear of such
a thing. If you want to get an idea how utterly destitute
of sympathy with Labor the present House of Commons
is, just read the reports of the speeches made on the occa¬
sion when Keir Hardie opposed the vote of congratulation
on the Royal marriage, or when he and other Labor
members raised the question of the employment of troops
at Hull ; or notice the attitude of the Party Press towards
Socialism, Trade Unionism, Independent Labor Candi¬
dates, and the leaders of strikes. It is a very common
thing to hear a Party Leader deprecate the increase of
“ class representation.” What does that mean ? It means
Labor representation. But the “ class ” concerned in
Labor representation is the working class, a “ class ” of
some twenty-seven millions of people. Observe the calm
effrontery of this sneer at “ class representation.” The
twenty-seven millions of workers are not represented by
more than a dozen members. The other classes — the
landlords, the capitalists, the military, the law, the brewers,
and idle gentlemen— are represented by something like six
hundred and fifty members. This is class representation
with a vengeance.

And, mind you, this disproportion exists not only in
Parliament, but in all county and municipal institutions.
How many working men are there on the County Coun¬
cils, the Boards of Guardians, the School Boards, and the
Town Councils?

234

MERRIE ENGLAND.

The Capitalists, and their hangers-on, not only make
the laws — they administer them. Is it any wonder, then,
that laws are made and administered in the interests of
the Capitalist ? And does it not seem reasonable to sup¬
pose that if the laws were made and administered by
workers, they would be made and administered to the
advantage of Labor?

Well, my advice to you working men is to return work¬
ing men representatives, with definite and imperative
instructions, to Parliament and to all other governing
bodies.

Some of the old Trade Unionists will tell you that
there is no need for Parliamentary interference in Labor
matters. The Socialist does not ask for “ Parliamentary
interference,” he asks for Government by the people and
for the people.

The older unionists think that Trade Unionism is strong
enough in itself to secure the rights of the worker. This
is a great mistake. The rights of the worker are the
whole of the produce of his labor. Trade Unionism not
only cannot secure that, but has never even tried to secure
that. The most that Trade Unionism has secured, or can
ever hope to secure for the workers, is a comfortable sub¬
sistence wage. They have not always secured even that
much, and, where they have secured it, the cost has been
serious. For the great weapon of Unionism is a strike,
and a strike is at best a bitter, a painful, and a costly thing.

Do not think that I am opposed to Trade Unionism.
It is a good thing ; it has long been the only defence of
the workers against robbery and oppression ; were it not
for the Trade Unionism of the past and of the present, the
condition of the British industrial classes would be one
of abject slavery. But Trade Unionism, although some
defence, is not sufficient defence.

MERR1E ENGLAND.

235

You must remember, also, that the employers have
copied the methods of Trade Unionism. They also have
organized and united, and in the future strikes will be
more terrible and more costly than ever. The Capitalist
is the stronger. He holds the better strategic position.
He can always outlast the worker, for the worker has to
starve and see his children starve, and the Capitalist
never gets to that pass. Besides, capital is more mobile
than labor. A stroke of the pen will divert wealth and
trade from one end of the country to the other ; but the
workers cannot move their forces so readily.

One difference between Socialism and Trade Unionism
is that whereas the Unions can only marshal and arm the
workers for a desperate trial of endurance, Socialism can
get rid of the Capitalist altogether. The former helps you
to resist the enemy, the latter destroys him.

I suggest to you, John, that you should join a Socialist
Society and help to get others to join, and that you should
send Socialist workers to sit upon all representative
bodies.

The Socialist tells you that you are men, with men’s
rights, and with men’s capacities for all that is good and
great — and you hoot him and call him a liar and a fool.

The Politician despises you, declares that all your suf¬
ferings are due to your own vices, that you are incapable
of managing your own affairs, and that if you were en¬
trusted with freedom and the use of the wealth you create
you would degenerate into a lawless mob of drunken
loafers, and you cheer him until you are hoarse.

The Politician tells you that his party is the people’s
party, and that he is the man to defend your interests,
and in spite of all you know of his conduct in the past
you believe him.

The Socialist begs you to form a party of your own, and

236

M ERR IE ENGLAND.

to do your work yourself, and you write him down a
knave.

To be a Trade Unionist and fight for your class during
a strike, and to be a Tory or a Liberal and fight against
your class at an election is folly. During a strike there
are no Tories or Liberals amongst the strikers ; they are
all workers. At election times there are no workers ;
only Liberals and Tories.

During an election there are Tory and Liberal Capital¬
ists, and all of them are friends of the workers. During
a strike there are no Tories and no Liberals amongst the
employers. They are all Capitalists and enemies of the
workers. Is there any logic in you, John Smith ? Is there
any perception in you ? Is there any sense in you ?

You never elect an employer as president of a Trades
Council; or as chairman of a Trade Union Congress; or
as member of a Trade Union. You never ask an em¬
ployer to lead you during a strike. But at election times,
when you ought to stand by your class, the whole body
of Trade Union workers turn into black-legs, and fight for
the Capitalist and against the workers.

I know that many of these Party Politicians are very
plausible men, and that they protest very eloquently that
their party really means to do well for the workers. But
to those protests there is one unanswerable reply. Even
if these men are as honest and as zealous as they pretend
to be, I suppose you are not gullible enough to believe
that they will do your work as well as you can do it your¬
selves.

I say to you then, once more, John Smith, that the most
practical thing you can do is to erase the words Liberal
and Tory from your vocabulary, write Socialist in the
place and resolve that henceforward you will elect only
Labor Representatives, and see that they do their duty.

ME HH IE ENGLAND.

237

CHAPTER XXVI.

IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?

If you fail in your duty to men, how can you serve spirits?

He who renovates the people reaches the borders of extreme virtue.

To know what is just, and not to practice it, is cowardice.

— Confucius.

Gold is worth but gold : love’s worth love. — Swinburne.

Oh my brother, if you only knew
What to me in these things is understood,

As it seems to me it would seem to you,

What was good for the Cause was surely good.

— Francis Adams.

When I began these letters, Mr. Smith, I promised to
put the case for Socialism before you as clearly and as
plainly as I could, asking you in return to render a verdict
in accordance with the evidence.

I have now done the work as well as I could under the
circumstances ; and I leave the matter in your hands.

“ Merrie England ” is not as lucid, nor as strong, nor as
complete as I hoped to make it, but it may serve to sug¬
gest the wisdom of wider studies.

A good work of this kind has long been needed. I have
not had time, nor health, nor opportunity to do it
thoroughly, but I thought it better to do it as well as I
could than to wait until I could take a whole year in
which to do it more thoroughly.

Perhaps some day I will set to work and do it all over
again. Meanwhile I ask you to believe that there is a
great deal more to be said for Socialism than these papers
of mine contain, and I suggest to you that it would be

238

M Eli ME ENGLAND.

well to read the books I have recommended; firstly,
because knowledge is always valuable, and secondly,
because it is your duty as a man and a citizen to under¬
stand the society you live in, and to mend it if you can.

There are very many well-meaning people who, whilst
owning that much wrong and misery exist, deny their own
responsibility for any part of them.

Very commonly we hear men say, “ Yes, it is a pity
that things are so bad ; but it is no fault of ours, and
nothing we can do will mend them.”

Now, John, that is a cowardly and dishonest excuse.
It is the old plea of Cain, “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ”
No one can shirk his responsibility. We are none of us
guiltless when wrong is done. We are all responsible in
some degree for every crime and sin, and for every grief
and shame for which or by which our fellow-creatures
suffer.

If for instance, the filthy condition of the Salford Docks
should cause sickness and loss of life, every citizen from
the highest to the lowest would be responsible for the
wrong.

When injustice is done it avails not for a man to plead
that he cannot prevent it. The fact is he has not tried to
prevent it, and therein lies his sin.

The average citizen sees the slums and the sweaters ;
he sees the wretched and the destitute ; he knows that
the weak and innocent are systematically robbed and
slain ; and his one excuse is that he “ cannot help it.”
Now, John, I ask you, have you tried to help it; or have
you only lied to yourself by saying no help was possible ?

Your duty, it seems to me, is clear enough. First of all
having seen that misery and wrong exist, it is your duty
to find out why they exist. Having found out why they
exist it is your duty to seek for means to abolish them.

MERE IE ENGLAND.

239

Having found out the means to abolish them, it is your
duty to apply these means, or, if you have not yourself
the power, it is your duty to persuade others to help you.

Do your duty, John. Do not lie to your soul any more.
Long have you known that injustice and misery are rife
amongst the people. If you have not acted upon the
knowledge it is not because you knew it to be useless so
to act, but because you were lazy and preferred your ease,
or because you were selfish and feared to lose your own
advantage, or because you were heartless and did not
really feel any pang at sight of the sufferings of others.

Let us have the truth , John, howsoever painful it may
be ; let us ha vs justice, no matter what the cost.

Go out into the streets of any big town, and use your
eyes, John. What do you find? You find some rich
and idle, wasting unearned wealth to their own shame
and injury, and the shame and injury of others. You
find hard-working people packed away in vile unhealthy
streets. You find little children famished, dirty, and
half naked outside the luxurious clubs, shops, hotels, and
theatres. You find men and women overworked and un¬
derpaid. You find vice and want and disease cheek by
jowl with religion and culture and wealth. You find the
usurer, the gambler, the fop, the finnikin fine lady, and
you find the starveling, the slave, the vagrant, the
drunkard, and the harlot.

Is it nothing to you, John Smith? Are you a citizen?
Are you a man ? And will not strike a blow for the right
nor lift a hand to save the fallen, nor make the smallest
sacrifice for the sake of your brothers and your sisters !
John, I am not trying to work upon your feelings. This
is not rhetoric, it is hard fact. Throughout these letters
I have tried to be plain and practical, and moderate. I
have never so much as offered you a glimpse of the higher

240

MERRIE ENGLAND.

regions of thought. I have suffered no hint of idealism
to escape me. I have kept as close to the earth as I could.
I am only now talking street talk about the common
sights of the common town. I say that wrong and sorrow
are here crushing the life out of our brothers and sisters.
I say that you in common with all men, are responsible
for the things that are. I say that it is your duty to
seek the remedy ; and I say that if you seek it you will
find it.

These common sights of the common streets, John, are
very terrible to me. To a man of a nervous temperament,
at once thoughtful and imaginative, those sights must be
terrible. The prostitute under the lamps, the baby
beggar in the gutter, the broken pauper in his livery of
shame, the weary worker stifling in his filthy slums, the
wage slave toiling at his task, the sweater’s victim
“sewing at once, with a double thread, a shroud as well
as a shirt,” these are dreadful, ghastly, shameful facts
which long since seared themselves upon my heart.

All this sin, all this wretchedness, all this pain, in spite
of the smiling fields and the laughing waters, under the
awful and unsullied sky. And no remedy !

These things I saw, and I knew that 1 was responsible
as a man. Then I tried to find out the causes of the
wrong and the remedy therefor. It has taken me some
years, John. But I think I understand it now, and I
want you to understand it, and to help in your turn to
teach the truth to others. *

Sometimes while I have been writing these letters I
have felt very bitter and very angry. More than once I
have thought that when I had got through the work I
would ease my heart with a few lines of irony or invec¬
tive. But I have thought better of it. Looking back
now I remember my own weakness, folly, cowardice. I

M EERIE ENGLAND.

241

have no heart to scorn or censure other men. Charity,
John, mercy, John, humility, John. We are poor
creatures, all of us.

So here is “ Merrie England ; ” the earnest though weak
effort of this poor clod of wayward marl, this little pinch
of valiant dust. If it does good — well ; if not — well. I
will try again.

Also, some day, perhaps, I will talk to you not as a
practical man, but as a human being. I will ask you to
feel with me the pulsing of the universal heart, to see
with me the awful eyes of the universal soul, gazing up¬
ward, dim and blurred and weary, but full of a wistful
yearning for the unrevealed and unspeakable glory which
men call God.

But these are “ practical ” letters, written with a practi¬
cal object, and addressed to practical people. They are
here republished as a book ; and as they have cost me
some time and trouble in the writing, I ask you, on your
part, to give a little time and trouble to the reading, and,
further, if, after that, you think them worth what they
have cost you, I shall be glad if you will help me by
recommending them to your friends.

I

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